France Identifies First Case of Ebola

French officials on Wednesday identified the first case of Ebola in the country, saying that a doctor who had traveled to Congo, where an outbreak began last month, had tested positive for the virus.

The humanitarian worker was admitted to a special healthcare facility and is in stable condition, the Health Ministry said in a statement. French health workers were racing to trace anyone who may have come in contact with the doctor. Contacts will have to be isolated for 21 days and will be closely monitored, the ministry said.

Congo is at the center of an outbreak in central Africa that was declared on May 15, with most cases in the northeastern Ituri province. At least 260 people have died, and there have been more than 1,000 confirmed cases in the country, according to the World Health Organization.

The doctor works for the Alliance for International Medical Action, an aid organization known as ALIMA that has been part of the emergency response to the outbreak, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of WHO, said in a news conference. The nonprofit has helped in setting up treatment centers, he said.

“This case is a reminder of the risks faced by front-line responders,” Tedros said, adding that 82 healthcare workers have become ill during the outbreak.

Tedros and the French officials did not disclose further details about the patient, including when he returned to France.

ALIMA said the physician is a man who had been working in an area where the virus is circulating. The nonprofit said its work in the region would continue as it investigates how a staff member contracted the virus.

“Contamination prevention measures have been in place since the beginning of our intervention to protect our teams,” ALIMA said in a statement.

Tedros warned against an “overreaction” to the discovery of cases outside of Africa, saying the risk to the rest of the world remained low. In 50 years, fewer than 30 cases of have been detected outside the continent.

The French Health Ministry said the risk of infection for the wider European population was low, citing the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Most of the positive cases in Congo have been in remote parts of the country, and Ebola spreads only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of a sick person.

ALIMA is one of several organizations rolling out clinical trials for treatment, which are set to begin next week in Congo, Tedros said. Since the outbreak was declared last month, the number of treatment beds has increased from fewer than 10 to more than 500 across 19 health centers, and daily testing has increased from 30 to more than 2,000.

But he said the emergency response was still too slow. “Despite the good progress we have made, we still face major challenges, and the outbreak is continuing to outpace the response,” he said.

Before the confirmed infection in France, the only active case in Europe was an American doctor who was transferred to Germany for treatment after he contracted the virus in Congo. Dr. Peter Stafford was likely infected May 9 while treating a woman who had a fever and severe stomach pain, according to Serge, the Christian mission organization that he works for. It was not known that the patient had Ebola when Stafford treated her. After she died and an Ebola outbreak was declared, it was presumed that she had the virus.

Stafford made a full recovery and was released this month. His wife and four children were also evacuated to the same hospital, where they were monitored for 21 days and did not become sick.

A positive case in Europe should not be surprising as the virus continues to spread in eastern Congo, said Dr. Daniela Manno, a clinical assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“Healthcare workers are particularly vulnerable because they may encounter patients in the early stages of Ebola disease, when symptoms are often nonspecific and can be mistaken for other common infections,” she said in a statement. But the risk to the general population in Europe remained low, she added, as health facilities have “well-established protocols for identifying and managing suspected cases of viral hemorrhagic fever.”

The outbreak is the 17th in Congo in recent decades, and it has tested the country’s expertise and resources. The type of Ebola virus behind this outbreak, known as Bundibugyo, is rare, with no targeted vaccines or treatment.

Conflicts in the region has caused the forced displacement of people, creating conditions for the rapid spread of the virus.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Lynsey Chutel/Arlette Bashizi
c. 2026 The New York Times Company

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