UPDATE 2-Former head of U.S. health agency charged with sexual abuse

Thomas Frieden, a former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who helped contain the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, was arrested in New York City on Friday on charges of groping a woman without her consent last year.

Frieden, who also once served as the city's health commissioner, turned himself into a Brooklyn police station on Friday morning, said Arlene Muniz, a New York Police Department spokeswoman. He was arrested on charges of sexual abuse, forcible touching, and harassment.

A 55-year-old woman filed a complaint against Frieden in July, accusing him of grabbing her buttocks against her will last October at his apartment in Brooklyn Heights, Muniz said. Police have not publicly identified her.

Frieden remained in custody on Friday, Muniz said.

It was not immediately clear if he was represented by a lawyer. He was due to make an initial appearance in Brooklyn's criminal court later on Friday, the district attorney's office said.

Frieden, 57, had a prominent role in helping respond to the outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa in 2014 and Zika fever that began in Brazil in 2015.

As New York City's health commissioner from 2002 to 2009, he oversaw efforts to ban smoking in public places. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed him to head the CDC, the country's main public health agency. He stepped down in 2017.

After leaving government, Frieden became the president of Resolve to Save Lives, an effort by the non-profit health organization Vital Strategies to improve public health systems around the world that is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the charity run by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, said in a statement that the organization was "disturbed and saddened" by the charges.

"At the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, we take any allegation of personal misconduct very seriously and are monitoring the situation closely," the statement said.

Vital Strategies and the two other charities did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

A wave of prominent men in entertainment, business and politics have faced backlash over the past year in the United States after being accused of sexual harassment in what has become known as the #MeToo movement.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)