An employee of Médecins Sans Frontières has tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola while working on the response to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s worsening outbreak, the medical charity said on Thursday.
MSF said the staff member was being evacuated under strict medical protocols and in coordination with health authorities in Congo and the Netherlands.
The patient is expected to be transferred to a designated hospital in the Netherlands for treatment.
The infection comes as Congo battles the largest Ebola outbreak in its history, with government figures showing more than 8,000 confirmed cases.
The country’s public health institute said this week that 8,067 cases had been recorded, including 3,901 deaths.
The current outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo species of the Ebola virus, has surpassed the scale and death toll of Congo’s 2018-2020 epidemic.
It is now the world’s second-largest recorded Ebola outbreak, behind the 2014-2016 West African epidemic that infected more than 28,600 people and killed over 11,000 in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
MSF is supporting the Ebola response in Ituri, North Kivu, Tshopo and Haut-Uélé provinces.
The organisation said that despite extensive protective measures for its medical teams, the risk of exposure to the virus could not be completely eliminated.
