British Healthcare Worker With Ebola in Congo to Be Evacuated to UK for Treatment

Updated Nov 6, 2026, 00:24 UTC

The patient has arrived in Britain. The man, a health worker who has not been identified, landed at RAF Northolt on Thursday, November 5, and was taken by ambulance to the Royal Free Hospital in north London, the BBC reported. He is being treated in the hospital's specialist infectious diseases unit. The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed on Thursday that the patient, described in later reporting as a doctor, is now receiving care in the Royal Free's high-level isolation unit.

The medical evacuation flight was arranged by the British and Congolese governments with international health partners, according to the Department of Health and Social Care. Dr Renu Bindra, deputy director for all-hazards public health response at the UK Health Security Agency, said the agency and the NHS have well-established and robust infection prevention and control protocols to limit the risk of onward transmission, and that the risk to the wider public remains low.

The Royal Free treated three health workers who were evacuated to Britain during the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014 and 2015, the BBC reported.

A British citizen in the Democratic Republic of Congo has tested positive for Ebola and will be brought back to the UK for treatment, the UK government said on Wednesday, November 4, 2026. The patient is a healthcare worker who had been sent to Congo by a humanitarian organisation to help support the response to the outbreak, according to Reuters, which cited an official document it had seen.

A UK government spokesperson said: "A British citizen currently in the DRC has tested positive for Ebola. The UK has well-established procedures for dealing with cases like this, and those processes have been activated. Further information will be shared in due course as appropriate. The risk to the UK public from Ebola remains low."

Stable condition and a specialist transfer

The patient is in a stable condition and is expected to arrive in Britain on Wednesday or Thursday, according to the document reported by Reuters. On arrival, the patient will be transferred by a specialist ambulance to a high-consequence infectious disease unit.

British authorities said they did not expect the case to have a serious public health impact in Britain. They also anticipated no disruption to international travel or trade.

The UK has two dedicated high-level isolation units that could take the case, at the Royal Free Hospital in London and the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, according to Dr Damien Tully of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's Uganda Research Unit, in reporting by PA.

First British case in the current outbreak

It is the first case involving a British national linked to the current Ebola outbreak, Reuters reported. Several other people from elsewhere in Europe have been infected during the same outbreak.

The current outbreak in DR Congo has led to more than 5,000 deaths. The scale of the outbreak in Congo is the wider context for the evacuation. The healthcare worker had gone to Congo to help with that response, and is now being returned to Britain for care in a specialist unit.

Only four cases of Ebola have ever been confirmed in the UK. Three of those involved health workers who responded to the West Africa outbreak between 2014 and 2015.

The government statement stressed that procedures for a case of this kind were already in place and had been activated. It gave no name for the patient, and no age or other identifying detail was reported by Reuters or the BBC. The patient is anonymous in all of the reporting.

Further information will be shared in due course, the spokesperson said. For now, the confirmed facts are the positive test in Congo, the planned evacuation, the stable condition, and the planned transfer to a high-consequence infectious disease unit on arrival in Britain.