Topline
American health and travel agencies on Monday instituted new travel restrictions surrounding an Ebola outbreak in Africa that has killed at least 100 people and triggered evacuation efforts for Americans in the Democratic Republic of Congo who may have been exposed to the disease.
A hospital visitor in Democratic Republic of Congo is screened for symptoms.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security said as of Monday they will start to implement enhanced public health screening and traveler monitoring for people arriving from areas affected by the Ebola outbreak.
Travelers without U.S. passports may be turned away if they’ve been in Uganda, Congo or South Sudan in the last 21 days, the agencies said, and officials will coordinate with airlines and customs officers to find travelers who may have been exposed to Ebola virus.
The agencies also said they’ll ramp up contract tracing, lab testing capacity and hospital readiness across the country in an effort to be prepared for any cases reported in the United States.
American officials are working to bring home several Americans—reportedly including one with symptoms—who may have been exposed to the virus while working for a nonprofit in Congo, where the outbreak is the most widespread.
The CDC on Monday said risk to the general U.S. public remains “low.”
What To Watch For
World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is expected to give an update on the ebola outbreak later Monday at the World Health Assembly.
Key Background
Jean Kaseya, the director general of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told the BBC Monday there have been at least 100 deaths and more than 395 suspected cases of ebola in Congo’s eastern province of Ituri. There have been at least two cases confirmed in Uganda, including one death, both of which were in people who traveled from Congo. Rwanda and South Sudan, two other neighbors of Congo, are now on “high alert” and the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern.” Local health authorities on Sunday said new treatment centers were being set up in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, but a WHO representative warned the equipment being sent to the region will not be enough to manage the spread of the disease.
Tangent
The U.S. has issued Ebola-related travel restrictions before. The CDC began “enhanced screening” for travelers arriving from Uganda during a 2022 outbreak, and all travelers from the country were funneled through five designated U.S. airports for health screening and monitoring. Before that, travelers from Guinea and Congo were restricted in 2021 and wide-sweeping travel controls were implemented during the 2014-2016 ebola epidemic in West Africa. Then, U.S.-bound passengers were screened before boarding flights in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and then had to fly through either JFK, Newark, Dulles, Atlanta or Chicago to be screened again before they could continue on to other airports in the country.
What Is Ebola And How Does It Spread?
The ebola disease is caused by an infection with an orthoebolavirus, a group of viruses found primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and first discovered in Democratic Republic of the Congo. The latest outbreak has been caused by the Bundibugyo strain of ebola, which has historically had a fatality rate between 30% and 50%. Unlike other strains of ebola, there is no vaccine available for Bundibugyo. It can take between two and 21 days after contact with the virus for an infected person to show symptoms, and ebola is spread primarily through contact with the body fluids of an infected person, or occasionally through contact with an infected animal.