WASHINGTON (TNND) — The suspected death toll of what’s become Africa’s second-largest Ebola outbreak ever has reached 220, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday.
“But we know the epidemic in the (Democratic Republic of Congo) is much larger,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak originated, is experiencing more than 900 suspected cases, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Neighboring Uganda has seven cases. On Monday, Africa CDC escalated the risk level of 11 African countries: South Sudan, Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia, Central African Republic, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Angola, Congo, Burundi and Somalia.
“This is too much. We cannot afford to have more Africans dying,” Africa CDC Director General Dr. Jean Kaseya said during a ministerial briefing.
The suspected death toll of what’s become Africa’s second-largest Ebola outbreak ever has reached 220, the World Health Organization said Monday. (TNND)
The United States has surged resources to the region.
“We have mobilized over $23 million the DRC, Uganda, also to South Sudan. These funds are to support monitoring, detection, response efforts,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mignon Houston said. “All hands really are on deck.”
In addition to Washington Dulles International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport were just designated as special Ebola screening airports where Americans must reenter the country if they’ve been to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the past 21 days. Non-U.S. citizens who’ve been to one of these countries in the past 21 days will be denied entry into the United States.
“You want to make sure we can funnel people into a place that is well-equipped to monitor them, to track their progress if they have the disease,” Houston said.
Last week, Dr. Peter Stafford became the first known American to test positive for the virus and was evacuated to Germany for treatment. He was exposed while treating patients in a Congolese hospital where he’s worked since 2023. Houston said if more Americans test positive, decisions on where they are sent for care – in the United States or elsewhere – will be made on a case-by-case basis.
“Before I was evacuated I was feeling really concerned I wasn’t going to make it. And now I’m cautiously optimistic,” Stafford said in a statement published by his missionary group.
Individuals who’ve tested positive were likely infected two weeks prior, according to Dr. Deborah Birx, who ran the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force during the first Trump administration.
“The problem with this particular outbreak is there was probably two, three or four cycles of infection before it was even reported,” Birx said. “And so a lot of the numbers you’re seeing and the rapid rise of the numbers is because it went undetected and underreported for probably three or hour weeks. That resulted in a lot of case reporting all at once.”
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