PRAGUE, May 20 (Reuters) – A U.S. doctor will be transferred from Uganda to a hospital in Prague on Wednesday after he came into contact with a patient infected with Ebola, Czech health officials said.
The doctor was showing no symptoms of the deadly virus and would be hospitalised as a precaution following a request from the United States, Health Minister Adam Vojtech said.
“There is no real risk to the wider public,” Vojtech told a press conference.
He added strict protocols would be followed in the transfer, and that the patient would be isolated for three weeks.
More than 130 deaths have been linked to an Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and cases have been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda.
The Faculty Hospital Bulovka in Prague, which specialises in infectious diseases, said late on Tuesday the patient was being transported in an isolation unit and was expected to arrive on Wednesday evening.
Germany has also accepted for treatment a U.S. citizen who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.S. CDC said on Tuesday.
Vojtech said the U.S. requested Czech assistance due to the country’s reputation in the infectious disease field.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus a public health emergency of international concern on Saturday, the first time a WHO chief has done so before convening an emergency committee.
The outbreak has alarmed experts because it was able to spread for weeks undetected across a densely populated area ravaged by widespread armed violence.
An outbreak in eastern Congo from 2018 to 2020 was the second deadliest on record and killed nearly 2,300 people.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Alex Richardson)
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