France has reported its first case of Ebola. A doctor who returned from a humanitarian mission in Congo has fallen ill.
This was reported by the French Ministry of Health, France24 reports.
The patient was isolated immediately after arriving in the country — even before the diagnosis was officially confirmed. Therefore, the risk of the infection spreading further is low, doctors believe.
The French Ministry of Health is identifying and testing everyone the man had contact with. The patientʼs condition is stable, as there is only a small amount of the virus in his body.
Ebola is an acute viral infection. The disease has a high mortality rate: 50-90%. The virus damages blood vessels, which can cause severe internal and external bleeding.
This is the first case of Ebola outside Africa since WHO reported a new outbreak of the fever in Congo and Uganda on May 17, 2026.
Ebola in Congo
The first human case of Ebola virus disease was reported in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976. The mortality rate during the first outbreaks was as high as 90%. Thanks to the advent of the Ebola-Zaire strain vaccine, this figure has been reduced to almost 40%.
The largest outbreak of Ebola virus in terms of the number of infected people occurred in West Africa from 2014 to 2016. The number of victims exceeded 11 thousand. In 2014, Time magazine named the fighters against Ebola "Person of the Year".
The current outbreak is the 17th in the history of DR Congo. WHO has called the fever epidemic an emergency because there is no vaccine for this strain, Ebola-Bundibugyo.
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