some Americans in the Democratic Republic of the Congo The officials are believed to have come into contact with suspected cases of the country’s latest Ebola outbreak, several of whom are believed to have been exposed to high-risk infections, sources told STAT. At least one of these people may develop symptoms.
One official said test results for these individuals are not yet available, but the U.S. government is reportedly making arrangements to transport them from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a location where they can be safely isolated and treated if they are found to be infected. It is unclear whether it will take place in the United States. There is also talk of possibly taking the individuals to a U.S. military base in Germany, the official said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly.
Already, there are at least 246 suspected cases of the outbreak and 80 deaths, including at least four healthcare workers.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held an impromptu press conference on Sunday to discuss the outbreak, which the World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). But when asked specifically whether any Americans had been exposed to Ebola and whether the government was planning to rescue them from the Democratic Republic of Congo, CDC incident chief Satish Pillai did not respond to questions.
WHO declares Ebola outbreak an international public health emergency
Neither the State Department nor the Department of Health and Human Services responded to repeated requests from STAT for information about the situation.
“We do not discuss or comment on the nature of individuals,” Pillai said. “This is a very dynamic situation and all I would say at this point is that we will continue to evaluate and keep you informed as we receive further information.”
Pillai said the CDC is assessing needs on the ground and is working to bring in experts to help with the response.
Despite the lack of an official response, STAT has been told that the US government has contacted medical facilities with high-containment treatment facilities that can isolate people with high-risk exposure to Ebola, as well as isolation beds that can treat them if they become sick.
One of the people who spoke to STAT said the situation is fluid and the numbers are changing daily. But what is clear is that efforts are underway to quickly expel some Americans from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the person said.
Such efforts are likely to be made even more difficult by the fact that one of the facilities that can isolate and care for people suspected of being infected with serious pathogens like Ebola is currently housing American passengers on the MV Hondius, the cruise ship where the hantavirus outbreak recently occurred.
The Ebola outbreak was declared a PHEIC by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Sunday evening Geneva time. Mr Tedros declared a PHEIC without yet convening a committee of experts to advise on the situation. This is an unprecedented action that speaks to the seriousness of the unfolding situation.
First hantavirus, now Ebola virus: What two outbreaks reveal about global preparedness
Confirmation that an Ebola outbreak is ongoing in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo was just released on Friday by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s National Institute of Public Health.
Daniel Jernigan, who led the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases until he resigned last summer in protest of the firing of former CDC Director Susan Monarrez, said current signs point to an outbreak occurring and it could take a significant amount of time to bring it under control. It is unusual for an Ebola outbreak to be this large when it is first declared, and this fact suggests that tracing all routes of transmission will be a difficult task.
“There’s a lot we don’t know here, and it’s happening very quickly, and the numbers suggest it’s not going away anytime soon,” Jernigan said.
The WHO announced on Sunday that the first known suspected case, a health worker, developed symptoms on April 24. Healthcare workers are unlikely to be the first infected people in an outbreak. A more likely scenario is that someone infected by a bat or another infected person brought the virus into a medical setting while receiving treatment. In any case, the outbreak smoldered for some time before the outbreak was attributed to Ebola.
Two infected people from the Democratic Republic of Congo traveled independently to Kampala, the capital of neighboring Uganda, and one person died. There is currently no sign that the infection is progressing in Uganda, the WHO said.
A strain of Ebola hemorrhagic fever called Bundibugyo is the cause of the outbreak. This is the third outbreak detected in Bundibugyo on record. The previous two times were in 2007 and 2012.
Historically, Bundibugyo has been perceived as a much lower risk than the Zaire and Sudanese Ebola viruses due to the lower frequency of outbreaks and the virus’s mortality rate is thought to be lower than the Zaire and Sudanese Ebola viruses. There is no licensed vaccine targeting this, and it is unlikely that there will be enough doses of the experimental Bundibugyo vaccine to deploy during an outbreak.
The outbreak appears to have started in Ituri province in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, near the borders with Uganda, South Sudan, and Rwanda. The region was the site of the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history from 2018 to 2020, with 3,470 cases and 2,287 deaths. (This outbreak was caused by the Zaire Ebola virus.) This region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has also been embroiled in years of conflict, making the initial response difficult and no doubt will do so again in the future. As seen during the 2018-2020 outbreak, people in this region regularly move between regions. Cross-border transmission of the virus was common in early outbreaks.
