MSF staff member tests positive for Ebola in Congo, aid organisation says

GENEVA/AMSTERDAM, Oct 1 — A Médecins Sans Frontières staff member working on the Ebola response ​in the Democratic Republic of Congo has contracted the Ebola Bundibugyo virus and is being evacuated to the Netherlands for treatment, ‌the humanitarian organisation said on Thursday.

"This person is being safely evacuated under a strict medical ⁠protocol in close coordination with ​the relevant health authorities in ⁠the DRC and the Netherlands, where the patient will be received ‌by a designated hospital," ‌MSF said in a statement.

The Dutch health ministry said the ⁠patient was an MSF doctor deployed ⁠to Congo to help combat the outbreak and would be treated in a specialised isolation unit at the University Medical Center in Leiden, a city about 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Amsterdam.

"They will be placed in strict isolation", the ministry said in a letter ‌to parliament.

Due to privacy concerns, a spokesperson ​for the Dutch health ministry declined to give more details on the patient.

The case comes as Congo's Ebola outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, has grown into the country's largest and deadliest on record.

Government data released on Monday showed confirmed cases had surpassed 8,000 for the first time, reaching 8,067, while deaths ​stood at 3,901.

The outbreak has overtaken Congo's 2018-2020 epidemic and is second ‌only to the ‌2014-2016 West ⁠African outbreak, which infected more than 28,600 people and killed over 11,000 in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

MSF, which is supporting the response in Ituri, North Kivu, Tshopo and Haut-Uélé provinces, said that despite extensive ‌protective measures for staff, the ​risk of exposure could never be ‌completely eliminated.

(Reporting by Olivia ⁠Le Poidevin ​in Geneva, Charlotte Van Campenhout in Amsterdam, editing by Matthias Williams, Thomas Seythal, ​Ros Russell)

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