WHO Declares Ebola Emergency as Bundibugyo Outbreak Spreads

The World Health Organization has declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda a public health emergency of international concern, CBS News and PBS NewsHour reported Monday. The agency said the outbreak does not meet the criteria for a “pandemic emergency” of the kind declared for COVID-19, and it advised against closing international borders, CBS reported.

The cause is the Bundibugyo strain, which has produced only two earlier outbreaks: in Uganda in 2007 and in Congo in 2012, according to CBS. This is Congo’s 17th Ebola outbreak since 1976. There is no approved vaccine or treatment for Bundibugyo, CBS medical correspondent Dr. Céline Gounder said; Spencer told PBS that approved treatments exist for the Zaire strain but not for this one.

The numbers are uncertain and rising. As of Saturday, WHO reported 8 laboratory-confirmed cases, 246 suspected cases and 80 suspected deaths in Ituri province, Congo, with two confirmed cases and one death in Kampala, Uganda, CBS reported. CBS reported that regional officials said Saturday they had identified upwards of 300 probable cases, and PBS put the toll at at least 116 suspected deaths and more than 300 other cases across the two countries. Only 13 blood samples had been tested at the national laboratory, eight of them positive. Officials warned the true scope could be much larger. The suspected first case was a nurse in Bunia, and CBS said the case dates back to April 24.

Dr. Craig Spencer, a Brown University public health expert who survived Ebola in 2014, told PBS that responders were “weeks, maybe months behind” when the virus began to spread, and that the outbreak “is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.” Cases have been reported in Goma, a large city in eastern Congo, and in Kampala, hundreds of kilometers away, PBS said.

In the United States, the CDC said the risk to the public “remains low,” CBS reported, and about 30 CDC personnel are in Congo. On Monday the CDC announced added screening and entry restrictions for people without U.S. passports who have been in affected areas. PBS described the measure as an entry ban on non-citizens who have been in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the past three weeks.

At least six Americans were exposed to the virus in Congo, according to sources with international aid organizations quoted by CBS News, which said STAT News first reported the exposures. Three faced a high-risk contact and one was symptomatic, the sources said. The CDC said it is supporting agencies that are coordinating the withdrawal of a small number of Americans directly affected.

Experts have raised questions about U.S. preparedness. The Trump administration cut support to USAID and withdrew from the WHO, and Spencer told CBS that “before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground.” A State Department spokesperson said Washington is working with Congo and Uganda and mobilizing support through UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration and the International Medical Corps, but did not directly address how earlier aid cuts may have affected readiness, CBS reported.

Doctors Without Borders called the outbreak’s rapid spread “extremely concerning” and said it is preparing a large-scale response, CBS reported. Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, not through casual contact or air.