France reports first Ebola case

France has confirmed its first Ebola case after a doctor who returned from a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo tested positive, health authorities announced on Wednesday.

The patient is being isolated and contact tracing is underway, the French health ministry said. Officials stressed that the risk to the general European population remains low. 

The doctor had been working in Congo, where an ongoing Ebola outbreak — declared a public health emergency of international concern by the WHO — has infected more than 1,000 people and caused hundreds of deaths. It is one of the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreaks on record. 

This marks the first known case of the current outbreak imported into Europe.