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Africa's top health official warns Britain is 'not safe' from Ebola as cases in DR Congo pass 10,000

An Ebola isolation tent in Nigeria, as the Swiss diplomat's wife — Nigeria's first case in the outbreak — was flown home to Switzerland with 52 contacts still under watch.
An Ebola isolation tent in Nigeria, as the Swiss diplomat's wife — Nigeria's first case in the outbreak — was flown home to Switzerland with 52 contacts still under watch.

Nearly 5,000 people have died since the outbreak began in May, and Africa CDC director-general Dr Jean Kaseya warned at a virtual health ministers' summit this week that the continent is "not winning" the fight. The outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, has now spread to Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda — its widest-ever geographic reach — with one confirmed case already recorded in France through a returning humanitarian worker. Dr Kaseya compared world leaders' current complacency directly to the early days of Covid.

The Trump administration has awarded $36 million to New York biomedical firm IAVI to develop an experimental Bundibugyo vaccine, with Phase I trial doses expected early next year.

Weekly confirmed cases in the DRC are running at 400 to 500, a plateau experts describe as 'very high', stoking concern that this could become the largest Ebola outbreak in history.

The UK Health Security Agency says the risk to the British public 'remains low', with screening in place for returning healthcare and humanitarian workers.

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