The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) issued a grave warning on Saturday, identifying ten African nations as being vulnerable to the escalating Ebola epidemic gripping the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. Jean Kaseya, the Director General of Africa CDC, specified Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Zambia as countries potentially at risk. Both Africa CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) are urgently seeking over $314 million to fund emergency responses to the crisis.
This alert follows the WHO’s upgraded risk assessment for the DRC on Friday, now categorized as ‘very high,’ due to an alarming 750 suspected cases and 177 presumed fatalities within the nation.
Across the border in Uganda, five confirmed cases have been linked to individuals traveling from the DRC. These recent cases include a Ugandan driver, a Ugandan healthcare professional who attended to the country’s initial confirmed patient, and a Congolese woman who transited through Uganda via a chartered flight, sought medical attention at a Kampala hospital, and subsequently returned home. Coinciding with this announcement, the United States committed $23 million to support the crisis response efforts in both the DRC and Uganda.
Earlier in the week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed profound concern over the ‘scale and speed’ of the outbreak, declaring it a public health emergency.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has implemented a temporary travel ban to the United States for non-American passport holders who have been in the DRC, South Sudan, or Uganda within the past three weeks.
Additionally, the CDC confirmed that Peter Stafford, an American physician working in the DRC, tested positive for Ebola and was transported to Germany for medical treatment. Six other U.S. citizens have reportedly been exposed to the virus.
The Christian missionary organization through which Stafford serves reported on Thursday that while he is ‘critically ill,’ his condition is not ‘acutely deteriorating.’ His wife, also a doctor, and their four children, all asymptomatic, are currently in Germany observing a precautionary quarantine, according to the group.
