The United States said it must ensure no Ebola cases enter the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an outbreak has already led to an estimated 220 deaths and about 900 cases.
The World Health Organization has classified the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola as the third-largest on record and declared it a public health emergency of international concern.
“We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday during President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting.
The Trump administration says its approach is aimed at containing the virus within the outbreak region, marking a shift from the 2014 Ebola response when patients were treated in specialized infectious disease centers in the United States.
US officials are reportedly in discussions with Kenya over a possible facility to quarantine American citizens exposed to the virus, although Kenyan authorities have not yet approved the plan.
Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, warned that patients would be better treated in established high-containment centres in the US or Germany.
“I can’t imagine that you can build a facility de novo in Kenya to have that same standard that we already have in these NETEC centers,” he said.
“They know how to deal with every aspect of it, from taking care of the patients to dealing with the waste, and knowing how to get the technologies there that they might need if someone needs dialysis, for example, or mechanical ventilation.”
He also cautioned that such arrangements could discourage medical volunteers from stepping forward.
Last week, a US citizen working as a medical missionary in the DRC tested positive for Ebola and was transferred to Germany for treatment alongside five others who had been exposed. A seventh individual was taken to the Czech Republic.
The Washington Post, citing five people familiar with the response, reported that the White House resisted allowing the patient to return to the United States, delaying evacuation and treatment.
US says it is working to contain Ebola
Rubio said the US has increased assistance to the region, including deploying a senior CDC official and committing millions in funding.
Authorities have also introduced travel restrictions for individuals who have recently been in the DRC and neighbouring countries, alongside screening measures for US citizens at three airports—steps some experts say may have limited effectiveness.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week imposed 30-day entry restrictions on travellers who have been in the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan within the past 21 days, including Green Card holders.
It is also screening arriving passengers from those countries at three US airports and has called for staff volunteers to support entry-point screening operations.
“What they’re doing here is trying to find options that don’t require bringing people back to the US if they can, partially because they don’t believe they have a lot of bandwidth at facilities in the US,” said Chris Meekins, a former US health official.
He pointed to ongoing quarantine measures for cruise passengers exposed to hantavirus as an example of containment efforts.
