U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday (May 18) he was "concerned" about Ebola but noted that the virus remains confined to Africa for now.
“I’m concerned about everything, but certainly am,” Trump said. “I think that, you know, it's been confined right now to Africa. But it's something that has had a breakout.”
His comment comes after U.S. officials said an American who tested positive for a strain of Ebola known as the Bundibugyo virus would be evacuated along with six high-risk contacts to Germany for treatment.
Dr. Heidi Overton, Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said the transfer was being arranged with German authorities, citing the country’s specialised facilities for treating viral hemorrhagic fevers.
“There is an American that is symptomatic and has tested positive for, it’s the Bundibugyo virus, a strain of Ebola. That American as well as six other high risk contacts are going to be taken out of that region and taken to Germany," she said.
"For all other Americans, we have issued travel warnings. We have instituted just today entry restrictions for non-U.S. citizens that have been in the region in the past 21 days. So in Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan," she added.
Overton also said that there are currently no Ebola cases in the United States and that officials are working to keep it that way.
U.S. authorities have issued travel warnings and implemented entry restrictions for non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in affected regions, including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, Overton said.
The U.S. State Department said it is working with the Centre of Disease Control and Provention (CDC) and the U.S. military on the evacuation plan and has activated a response strategy, including $13 million in emergency foreign assistance for outbreak response efforts.
Meanwhile, a panel of experts led by the World Health Organization will meet on Tuesday (19 May) to discuss if there are any vaccine options to help tackle a major Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Head of the WHO on Tuesday said he was deeply concerned at the speed and scale of the Ebola outbreak, as the number of cases rises.
There are at least 500 suspected cases and 130 suspected deaths from Ebola since the new outbreak began, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
That is in addition to one confirmed death and one confirmed case in Kampala, Uganda - among two individuals who travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 30 cases being confirmed in the DRC, from the northeastern province of Ituri, he said.
"These numbers will change as field operations are scaling up, including strengthening surveillance, contact tracing and laboratory testing," Ghebreyesus told members of the World Health Assembly, who are meeting this week in Geneva.
The WHO and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have both declared it a public health emergency.
There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which has a fatality rate of up to 40%.
However, there is a vaccine named Ervebo, manufactured by Merck, that is used for the Ebola Zaire strain but has shown evidence of providing some protection against Bundibugyo in animal studies. The potential for testing this and other options will be on the agenda.
"When you have an outbreak with a strain that does not have countermeasures, we are going to advise on the best approach to take," said Dr Mosoka Fallah, Acting Director of the Science Department at Africa CDC. "We will look at what evidence we have and make a decision."
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