WASHINGTON/BERLIN, – A US citizen who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an outbreak of a rare strain of the virus has killed over 130 people, is currently on his way to Germany for treatment, the US CDC said on Tuesday.
The patient has been previously identified by the Serge Christian mission organisation as medical missionary Peter Stafford.
Germany earlier on Tuesday said it was preparing to treat the individual at the largest university hospital in Berlin.
The health ministry confirmed a US citizen would be admitted to the special isolation ward at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital after US authorities requested assistance.
“Arrangements are currently being made to admit and treat the patient in Germany,” a spokesperson said, adding that there was a network of experts in the country for the management and care of patients with highly infectious diseases.
Six others who are considered “high-risk contacts” are finalising travel plans to transit to Europe, Dr Satish Pillai, the incident manager for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ebola response, told reporters on a call.
“The individuals are travelling to Europe, including in Germany, and they will be in quarantine during their monitoring period,” Pillai said. One person will be going to the Czech Republic, and the rest to Germany, he said.
The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus in eastern DRC has killed 131 people and been declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization.
Support for Response Clinics
The US State Department on Tuesday said it would fund up to 50 treatment clinics and associated costs in Ebola-affected regions of the DRC and Uganda and the Congo. The funding would come mainly via the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) administered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the State Department said.
State added that it would continue to work closely with the CDC to mobilise global resources to respond to the outbreak. The clinics will enable implementing partners to provide emergency Ebola screening, triage and isolation capacity, while setting up containment perimeters around affected areas.
The World Bank said it was also focused on ensuring the mobilisation of financing and technical support for countries responding to the Ebola outbreak.
Genetic testing has shown that diagnostic tests currently available for Ebola are effective in detecting the strain, the CDC’s Pillai said.
The risk to the United States remains low, he said, and the CDC is working with state, local, tribal, and territorial health departments on immediate patient isolation, specimen collection, and testing in suspected cases.
Pillai pointed to other measures the CDC has taken, including entry restrictions the US agency announced on Monday for travellers who have departed from, or were present in, the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan during the past 21 days.
Africa CDC Criticises Travel Curbs
The Africa CDC criticised the decision on Tuesday, saying in a statement that travel restrictions are not a solution and could potentially increase the risk rather than reducing it.
“The fastest path to protecting all countries in the world is to aggressively support outbreak control at the source,” said Africa CDC Director General Dr Jean Kaseya. “Global health security cannot be achieved through borders alone.”
Public health experts say cuts to the US CDC under President Donald Trump’s administration and the official withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization this year will hamper US response efforts and support.
The US CDC has a country office with 30 staff members in the DRC, Pillai said, and another with 100 staff in neighbouring Uganda, where there have been at least two confirmed cases.
One CDC expert will be sent to the region tomorrow, he said, and the agency is providing remote and on-the-ground assistance in several ways including disease tracking, contact tracing, rapid laboratory sample collection and viral sequencing.
He did not directly address a question on the DRC team and the upcoming World Cup but said the CDC was working with FIFA to ensure that travellers and the American public remain safe throughout.
Source: Reuters
