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Ebola reaches France as doctor tests positive and outbreak claims hundreds of lives

A doctor has tested positive for Ebola in France having returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak has claimed hundreds of lives

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A doctor in France has tested positive for Ebola (stock)(Image: AP Photo/Niki Chan Wylie)

A first case of Ebola has been reported in France with a doctor returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo testing positive.

The doctor had returned from a humanitarian mission, the French health ministry said, and caught the virus during the latest outbreak.

The patient is being isolated and authorities are contact tracing, the ministry said, adding that the risk for the general European population was low.

Congo's Ebola outbreak, which has infected more than 1,000 people and killed 267, has had the largest number of confirmed cases within the first month of any episode of the disease, the World Health Organisation said. Tracing those who had been in contact with patients remains a major challenge.

A total of 100 people have recovered in the outbreak concentrated in the Ituri province since it was declared on May 15, Congos Ministry of Health said. At least 365 patients are in hospitals or in isolation.

The Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, which has no vaccines or treatment, was the worst ever in its first month and officials admit there could be far more cases they still dont know about, with the peak of the outbreak still ahead.

Contact tracing remains a key issue for local authorities, who have only achieved a 55% coverage rate, the ministry said.

If you want to control an outbreak, especially Ebola outbreak, you must know the index case. We dont have confidence on when this outbreak started, said the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya.

Officials also are yet to identify the patient zero and trace more than 35,000 people who have come in contact with infected individuals as of last week, authorities said.

Thats partly because eastern Congo is also battling ongoing violence from rebels. In Ituri, attacks by the Islamic State group-backed Allied Democratic Force have cut off access to many villages and forced people to flee their homes, including those sheltering in overcrowded camps and others constantly on the move.

More than a month into the outbreak, officials believe the disease continues to outpace response efforts and no one knows its true scale.

At the Kigonze displacement camp in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, camp officials said last Friday that 10 people had died over the past week in unusual circumstances, raising the fear of a possible outbreak in the camp of over 20,000 displaced people.

There had been no Ebola case confirmed at the site, camp officials said, but added that the death rate was unprecedented and called for investigation.

The UN refugee agency has said at least 2 million people forcibly displaced from their homes, including over 320,000 refugees, live in areas at risk of Ebola in Congo.

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