By Ahmed Aboulenein and Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON, May 27 (Reuters) – The United States said on Wednesday it must prevent any cases of Ebola from entering the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an outbreak has already caused a suspected 220 deaths and 900 cases.
The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola the third-largest such outbreak on record, and 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 at President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting.
The United States is in talks with Kenya over opening a facility there to quarantine U.S. citizens who are exposed, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Kenya’s government has not yet approved the plan. In the 2014 Ebola outbreak, U.S. citizens returned to and were treated in the U.S.
Last week, a U.S. citizen who was treating patients in the DRC as a medical missionary was confirmed to have contracted Ebola and was moved to Germany for treatment along with five others who were exposed. A seventh person was taken to the Czech Republic.
The Washington Post, citing five people familiar with the U.S. Ebola response, reported last week that the White House resisted allowing the medical missionary patient to return to the United States, delaying his evacuation and care.
U.S. SAYS IT IS WORKING TO CONTAIN EBOLA
“The State Department and other agencies represented here, the Centers for Disease Control, HHS, others, are working very, very hard to contain this crisis to the countries where it’s currently located, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and so we surged assistance to make sure that it is being contained there,” Rubio said on Wednesday.
The U.S. CDC last week imposed entry restrictions for 30 days on travelers who have been in the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan in the past 21 days, including lawful permanent residents, known as Green Card holders.
It is also screening people traveling from those countries at three U.S. airports. The agency asked staff to volunteer for urgent deployment to support screening at the country’s entry points, expanding recruitment beyond its usual emergency responder pool as screening of arrivals ramps up.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Caroline Humer and Matthew Lewis)
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