The White House intends to ask Congress for upwards of $1.4 billion in fresh money to tackle a spreading Ebola outbreak, a Trump administration official told Reuters.

Folded into a wider supplemental request, the package would set aside $800 million for humanitarian response, paying for a quarantine centre in Kenya for exposed Americans as well as supplies, treatment, contact tracing and infection control.

Another $500 million in global health security funding is being sought to keep the virus out of the United States, covering surveillance, laboratory capacity and cross border coordination, while a further $90 million would support evacuations and other diplomatic efforts.

The plan emerged as France reported its first case, a doctor returning from aid work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first confirmed in Europe. Congo’s outbreak, traced to the rare Bundibugyo strain, has infected more than 1,000 people and claimed 267 lives.

French authorities put the risk to the public as very low, and WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus likewise judged the wider global threat low, urging calm. Uganda has also recorded cases, with 20 infections and two deaths confirmed.