Ebola patient ‘escapes from treatment centre’

A patient being treated for Ebola has escaped from a treatment centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

News website Actualité quotes DR Congo’s health ministry as saying that a person who tested positive for the virus escaped from the Ebola treatment centre in Lubero, in North Kivu province, and is believed to have returned to the community.

According to the website, the patient tested positive for Ebola on 25 July and medical teams are “attempting to trace the individual”. The outbreak has killed more than 1,700 people over the past year and last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak an international health emergency.