An unnamed British medical doctor who treated patients with Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been flown to the United Kingdom to commence treatment, the UK government said on Thursday.

This was disclosed in a notice from the Department of Health and Social Care, titled UK citizen returned from DRC for specialist Ebola care, which was sighted by PUNCH Online on the UK government website. The notice said the doctor was transported to the UK to receive specialist treatment after testing positive for Ebola.

The notice added that the doctor was evacuated in a joint effort between the governments of the UK and the DRC, with support from international health partners. It said infection prevention and control procedures were applied to those involved in the individual care, and to the journey on the medical evacuation flight.

The doctor is now being cared for in a high level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital, London. The notice described the unit as highly specialised and specifically designed for this purpose, staffed by expert clinical teams.

The patient landed at RAF Northolt before being transported in a convoy to the hospital in north London.

The Deputy Director, All Hazards Public Health Response at UK Health Security Agency, Dr Renu Bindra, said the agency and the National Health Service have well established and robust infection prevention and control protocols to limit the risk of onward transmission, and the risk to the wider public remains low.

The Royal Free Hospital has asked for privacy for the patient and family, and said it will not comment on the patient condition or identity.

Sky News reports that this is the first case involving a British national linked to the current outbreak, though several Europeans from other countries have been infected in recent months. Only four cases of the virus, which has a high fatality rate, have been confirmed in the UK since 1976, according to the UK Health Security Agency. The Royal Free previously treated three health workers evacuated during the 2014 to 2015 outbreak in West Africa.

The current outbreak in DR Congo involves the Bundibugyo strain, which has infected more than 10,000 people and killed more than 5,000, making it the largest and deadliest in the country history. On October 20, 2026, Nigeria confirmed its first case of Ebola disease in the current outbreak after laboratory tests detected the Bundibugyo virus in a woman who had travelled to the country from Uganda.