A British man receiving treatment for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being evacuated to the United Kingdom, the British government said Thursday.

The man, believed to be a healthcare worker, is the first British patient to be evacuated from the current outbreak and the third person infected with the virus to be brought back to Europe for treatment.

He is expected to be admitted to the Royal Free Hospital in London, which has a high-level isolation unit previously used to treat Ebola patients during the 2014-2015 outbreak in West Africa.

The Foreign Office said the UK had activated its procedures for handling infectious diseases, adding that the risk to the general public was low.

France confirmed an Ebola case in June involving a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in Congo and has since recovered. Last month, a Swiss woman believed to have contracted the virus in Uganda was evacuated to Geneva for treatment, while her diplomat husband was placed in isolation in Zurich.

The outbreak has spread across some of Congo’s most remote provinces, infecting 10,600 people and claiming more than 5,100 lives. It has reached 67 health zones across eight provinces, up from three zones when it was first declared in May.

“The infection of a British healthcare worker with Ebola is deeply concerning, but it is not entirely unexpected,” said Dr Damien Tully, an infectious disease expert at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

He said healthcare workers were particularly exposed during outbreaks as they treated severely ill patients under difficult conditions, adding that accidental exposure could occur despite strict protective measures.