President Trump has said that he is “concerned” about an Ebola outbreak in Africa after an American tested positive for the deadly disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday the patient had tested positive while in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A CDC official told reporters that the American developed symptoms over the weekend and was tested late Sunday.
Trump took questions about the outbreak at a White House event centered around his administration’s consumer-drug website, TrumpRx.
One journalist asked if people in the U.S. should be concerned about the spread of Ebola.
“I’m concerned about everything, but certainly am,” Trump said. “I think that, you know, it’s been confined right now to Africa, and, but, it’s something that has had a breakout.”
Heidi Overton, deputy director at the White House Domestic Policy Council, said that the American who tested positive is due to be taken to Germany.
“That American, as well as six other high-risk contacts, are going to be taken out of that region and taken to Germany, we want to thank our German counterparts,” Overton told reporters. “That is an internationally recognized location for viral hemorrhagic fever treatments.”
Overton added that the flight time to receive treatment is shorter if patients head to Germany instead of the U.S.
The individual who tested positive for Ebola has not yet been named. Serge, a Christian mission organization, confirmed that one of its medical missionaries, Dr Peter Stafford, had been exposed while treating patients at a hospital in the DRC.
In a press release, the World Health Organization declared that the spread of the Ebola-causing virus known as Bundibugyo was a public health emergency of international concern. So far, cases have been recorded in the DRC and Uganda.
However, the WHO noted that the outbreak does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency.
The Bundibugyo virus is one of four species of orthoebolavirus that cause Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever. Currently, no approved Bundibugyo virus-specific vaccines or therapeutics exist.
Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal.
Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, and unexplained bleeding or bruising.
On Monday the CDC confirmed it has imposed entry restrictions on non-U.S passport holders if they have been in Uganda, DRC, or South Sudan in the last 21 days. The agency also confirmed that it would be enhancing public health screening and monitoring for individuals travelling from areas affected by the outbreaks.
In the release, the CDC described the immediate risk to the general U.S. public as “low.”
The Bundibugyo virus is closely related to the Zaire ebolavirus, which was responsible for the 2013-2016 outbreak in Western Africa.
During that outbreak, Trump labeled former President Obama as “dumb” for his handling of the crisis and called for him to resign, in social media posts obtained by Vox.
