An American man tested positive for Ebola while working as a medical missionary in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an outbreak of the deadly virus was first identified, officials said.
The man, Dr. Peter Stafford, was exposed to the virus while treating patients at Nyankunde Hospital in Bunia, the main city in the country’s Ituri Province. Dr. Stafford has worked at the hospital since 2023, Serge, the international Christian missions organization where he works, said in a news release.
The World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak a global health emergency on Saturday, a day after it was first announced by Africa’s top public health authority.
On Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order suspending entry into the United States for 30 days for travelers who do not have a U.S. passport and have recently traveled to the D.R.C., South Sudan and Uganda. Cases have been confirmed in the D.R.C. and Uganda, according to the agency.
The C.D.C. had also announced Monday that an American working in Congo had tested positive for the virus on Sunday after developing Ebola symptoms over the weekend but did not identify him. Serge later announced Dr. Stafford’s case.
The United States government is working to move the American who tested positive and other “high-risk contacts” to Germany for treatment and monitoring because of that country’s past experience treating Ebola patients and its proximity to Africa, said Dr. Satish Pillai, the C.D.C.’s Ebola response incident manager.
The C.D.C. had previously said that officials were working to withdraw a small number of Americans who have been directly affected by the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
Dr. Pillai emphasized on Monday that the risk to the United States was low, and that there were no confirmed cases in the country.
Dr. Stafford was one of three medical missionaries working with Serge in the region when the Ebola outbreak began, the organization said. Two other physicians — Dr. Stafford’s wife, Dr. Rebekah Stafford, and Dr. Patrick LaRochelle — may have been exposed to the virus but were asymptomatic on Monday. All three doctors have been quarantining, Serge said. The organization added that Dr. Stafford’s four young children were undergoing “continued risk monitoring.”
As of Sunday, there had been reports of over 330 suspected cases, including nearly 90 deaths, in Congo, according to the C.D.C. So far, laboratory testing has definitively linked 10 cases to the virus. Two cases have also been confirmed in neighboring Uganda.
Dr. Pillai said on Sunday that travelers were being screened for symptoms when leaving Congo and Uganda and when arriving in the United States.
The type of Ebola virus behind the latest outbreak, known as Bundibugyo, has no targeted vaccine or treatment.
It has a mortality rate of 25 to 50 percent, and most of the cases in Congo to date have been in people between 20 and 39 years old, with over two-thirds being women, according to the C.D.C.
The agency has issued advisories for Americans traveling in Congo and Uganda, urging them to avoid contact with people who have symptoms like fever, muscle pain and rash, and to monitor themselves for symptoms.
The W.H.O. declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” on Saturday, noting that its scale could be far larger than what had been detected or reported.
It added that there were “significant uncertainties” about the precise number of people infected and the geographical spread of the outbreak, and that the risk of the outbreak’s spreading was exacerbated by factors that include a humanitarian crisis and high population mobility.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has played a major role in containing previous outbreaks, but the Trump administration closed it last year.
The administration also cut funding for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the country’s leading public health agency, and withdrew in January from the W.H.O.
Apoorva Mandavilli contributed reporting.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
The post American Man Tests Positive for Ebola Amid Outbreak, Officials Say appeared first on New York Times.
