The United States ruling class has banned Americans currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo from leaving the country amid an increasingly spreading Ebola outbreak. About two dozen Americans are now stuck in DR Congo as healthcare workers struggle to contain a Bundibugyo outbreak of the Ebola virus.
Washington has already tightened restrictions on those coming from Ebola-stricken areas of the DR Congo. Back in May, when the outbreak began, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) raised its travel warning for parts of the DR Congo and Uganda, while the Department of Homeland Security directed travelers arriving from the DR Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan to go through enhanced screening at designated US airports.
These new rules, announced by the ruling Trump administration on Monday, will place US nationals currently in DR Congo or who recently left the country on a “do-not-board” list using federal transportation powers, Reuters reported, citing a White House official.
The measure comes amid the fast-spreading outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in DR Congo, where 1,926 confirmed cases and 702 deaths have been reported by health authorities as of July 11th. By July 15th, those numbers increased to 2,011 confirmed cases and 754 deaths.
On Friday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said an American working for a humanitarian organization in DR Congo had tested positive for Ebola. Another US citizen infected while working in the Central African nation was admitted to Frankfurt University Hospital in Germany, his employer, the evangelical Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse, said on Monday. Peter Stafford, a surgeon and leader with the Christian missionary group Serge who contracted the virus earlier in the outbreak, was also evacuated to Germany for treatment. –RT
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Uganda has reported 20 confirmed cases and two deaths. A case linked to travel from DR Congo has also been detected in France involving a doctor who returned late last month from a humanitarian mission.
World Health Organization chief, General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says that even thought the virus continues to spread, the risk for a more global or widespread regional spread is very low.
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