Bahamas isolates foreign nationals after Congo trip

NAS­SAU, Ba­hamas, May 25, CMC – Two for­eign na­tion­als, who re­cent­ly spent three weeks in the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go and trav­eled to The Ba­hamas last week­end, re­main in iso­la­tion, health au­thor­i­ties say.

“The men, who have now been re­lo­cat­ed to the Mod­u­lar Unit of the Princess Mar­garet Hos­pi­tal, con­tin­ue to un­der­go mon­i­tor­ing pro­ce­dures in line with glob­al pro­to­cols for per­sons with a his­to­ry of trav­el to the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go (DRC),” the Min­istry of Health and Well­ness said in a state­ment.

Act­ing Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr. Jil­lian Bartlett said the for­eign­ers, a British na­tion­al who lives in Aus­tralia and the oth­er, a French na­tion­al liv­ing in France, had ar­rived at the Lyn­den Pin­dling In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Fri­day night.

Bartlett said the pair had spent three and a half weeks in DRC be­fore trav­el­ling to Heathrow Air­port in Lon­don and then on­ward to The Ba­hamas. She shared that the area vis­it­ed in DRC is not cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing an Ebo­la out­break, that the pair has ex­hib­it­ed on­ly fever symp­toms, and that the risk to the pub­lic is low.

Health au­thor­i­ties said the re­main­ing 216 in­di­vid­u­als were screened and placed in­to risk cat­e­gories in line with in­ter­na­tion­al health guide­lines. They said 43 peo­ple, in­clud­ing pas­sen­gers seat­ed near the two mon­i­tored in­di­vid­u­als and rel­e­vant crew mem­bers, are re­ceiv­ing ad­di­tion­al mon­i­tor­ing.

Au­thor­i­ties said the mat­ter is be­ing han­dled in con­sul­ta­tion with the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion and the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO).

“The pub­lic is re­mind­ed that the risk to the pub­lic re­mains low and that there are no con­firmed cas­es of Ebo­la in The Ba­hamas. Reg­u­lar up­dates will be forth­com­ing as in­for­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed,” the min­istry said, adding that it is “the of­fi­cial source for up­dates that are a mat­ter of na­tion­al health im­por­tance and pub­lic health im­pact”.

CMC/ag/ir/2026