CDC Announces Travel Restrictions, Enhanced Screening for Travelers Amid Ebola Outbreak

American health agencies are implementing travel restrictions on three African countries amid an Ebola outbreak involving one of the two variants that have no approved vaccine.On Friday, Congolese health officials acknowledged an outbreak of the Ebola disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s province of Ituri, which is near Uganda and Sudan. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 87 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the virus. Most of the cases have been in patients between the ages of 20 and 39. On Sunday, the World Health Organization, WHO, declared the outbreak a public health emergency, but said it is not a pandemic emergency like COVID-19. In a statement on Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it had “implemented enhanced travel screening, entry restrictions, and public health measures to prevent Ebola disease from entering the United States.”The agency said that it will impose entry restrictions on non-U.S. passport holders if they have been to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, or Sudan within the last 21 days. The restrictions are set to last for at least 30 days.It also said it had implemented “public health screening and traveler monitoring for individuals arriving from areas affected by Ebola outbreaks in the region.”“At this time, CDC assesses the immediate risk to the general U.S. public as low, but we will continue to evaluate the evolving situation and may adjust public health measures as additional information becomes available,” the CDC said.Despite President Trump formally completing the process of pulling America out of the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control said it is working with “international partners” to “identify and manage travelers who may have been exposed to Ebola virus.”Disease control officials said that an American had contracted the Ebola virus in connection with work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The individual was being evacuated to Germany. A CDC incident manager, Satish Pillai, told reporters on Monday that six other people are waiting to be evacuated.Ebola typically does not spread easily as it is transmitted through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids such as feces or vomit, but it oftentimes can be fatal. The World Health Organization reports that the “average Ebola disease case fatality rate is around 50 percent,” however, past outbreaks have seen mortality rates of up to 90 percent. Health officials have said that the strain involved in the current outbreak is the Bundibugyo virus, first identified in the eponymous district of Uganda in 2007 and which cannot be contained by a vaccine or treatment. Two other older variants, the Sudan and Ebola viruses, can also be deadly. A vaccine has been created only for the Ebola strain. The location of the current outbreak is also the region where the second-largest outbreak of Ebola in history occurred. Between 2018 and 2020, health workers identified more than 3,470 cases and 2,287 deaths. However, the hemorrhagic fever during that era was one of the variants of Ebola that is considered treatable. More than 61,000 people were vaccinated at the time despite living in or near an active conflict zone.

CDC Announces Travel Restrictions, Enhanced Screening for Travelers Amid Ebola Outbreak

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