Nijmegen patient cleared of ebola as Congo outbreak grows

A patient admitted to the Radboudumc teaching hospital in Nijmegen last week with a suspected ebola infection does not have the virus, blood tests have confirmed.

The patient was brought to the hospital’s specialist high-level isolation unit on Thursday evening after returning from a part of central Africa where a large ebola outbreak is unfolding, broadcaster NOS first reported. Both Radboudumc and the public health institute RIVM had described the suspicion as “low” from the outset.

The negative result was confirmed on Saturday evening, the hospital said in a statement. The patient has been moved to a regular ward and is receiving routine care. Neither Radboudumc nor RIVM has disclosed details about the patient’s identity.

The patient was initially driven to the Isala hospital in Zwolle by a specialist ambulance on Thursday evening, but health officials decided in consultation with the regional public health service GGD IJsselland to drive on to Nijmegen, which has the specialist isolation facility. An Isala spokesperson said the patient had only briefly been on the hospital’s forecourt.

Outbreak in DR Congo

The Democratic Republic of Congo declared a new ebola outbreak in Ituri Province, in the country’s east, on May 15 – its 17th since the virus was first identified in 1976. Two cases have also been confirmed in Uganda, including one death, both in people who had recently travelled from the DRC.

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” – its highest alert level – on 17 May. On 22 May, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus raised the assessment of the risk in the DRC itself to “very high”, with regional risk rated “high” and the global risk “low”.

He called the situation “deeply worrisome”.

So far, 82 cases and seven deaths have been laboratory-confirmed in the DRC, Tedros said, but the WHO believes the true scale is much larger, with around 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths. A US citizen who was infected while working in the DRC has been evacuated to Germany for treatment.

The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the ebola virus, a rarer variant for which there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment, and which has caused outbreaks with high mortality in the past.

RIVM says the risk to travellers remains small and advises people travelling to affected areas to avoid contact with sick or deceased people and their bodily fluids, to avoid eating raw meat from wild animals, and to stay away from unsafe burial rituals.