US health authorities confirmed on Monday that an American has developed Ebola after being exposed during their work in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); officials also said that they are taking “proactive measures” to protect US citizens in response to the ongoing Ebola virus epidemic in the DRC and Uganda.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the case on Monday and said the individual was being evacuated to Germany. They developed symptoms over the weekend and tested positive late Sunday, said Satish K Pillai, an incident manager for the CDC’s Ebola response in a press conference.
There are also six other people who are in the process of being evacuated, to receive treatment or monitoring, Pillai said. There are about 25 people working in the US office in DRC, and the CDC is sending another person from Atlanta, Georgia.
Based on “current epidemiological evidence, ongoing risk assessments, and the highly serious nature of EVD (Ebola virus disease)”, the CDC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said earlier on Monday that they would introduce enhanced public health screening and monitoring for travelers arriving in the US from the region.
US entry restrictions to non-US passport holders would be enacted for travelers if they have been in Uganda, the DRC or South Sudan in the past 21 days.
Airlines, international partners and port-of-entry officials have been directed to identify and manage travelers who may have been exposed to the virus and enhanced “port health protection response activities, contact tracing, laboratory testing capacity, and hospital readiness nationwide” had been enacted.
There are 10 confirmed cases of Ebola, 336 suspected, and 88 deaths in the DRC. Among the dead are at least four health workers.
The CDC said it assessed the immediate risk to the general US public as low, “but we will continue to evaluate the evolving situation and may adjust public health measures as additional information becomes available”.
The agency further advised that anyone who has travelled through the affected countries to monitor CDC travel health notices and seek medical attention immediately if you develop symptoms consistent with Ebola.
The measures will last for an initial 30 days, the CDC said.
The advisory comes after a number of Americans in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been identified as “directly affected” by the outbreak of Ebola, with at least one who may have developed symptoms.
CDC said in statement on Sunday that it was “supporting interagency partners who are actively coordinating the safe withdrawal of a small number of Americans who are directly affected by this outbreak”.
The advisory came a day after the World Health Organization declared a “public health emergency of international concern” caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus in the DRC and Uganda, and two days after an epidemic was first announced by Africa’s top public health authority.
The outbreak was first identified in the country’s north-eastern Ituri province, near the border with Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda. That area was the location of the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history, which ran from 2018 to 2020, involving 3,470 cases and 2,287 deaths. However, it involved a different strain of the virus, known as Zaire ebolavirus, which is considered treatable.
The outbreak marks only the third time an outbreak of Bundibugyo has been detected. The two previous were in 2007 and 2012. It has a mortality rate of 25% to 50%. It has no targeted vaccine or treatment.
Satish Pillai, the CDC’s incident manager, said on Sunday that it was a “highly dynamic situation” that the US was continuing to assess.
The Ebola outbreak comes less than two weeks since an outbreak of the rat-borne hantavirus abroad cruise ship MV Hondius required 16 Americans to be flown to a medical facility in Nebraska.
The WHO said Sunday that the first known suspected case, a health worker, developed symptoms on 24 April. They likely received it from someone brought in for care, indicating that the outbreak had been circulating for some time.
The two infected people from the DRC travelled separately to the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where one died. The WHO says there is no indication of ongoing transmission the country.
