An American doctor working in eastern Congo tested positive for Ebola and was evacuated to Germany amid a deadly Bundibugyo outbreak.
An American doctor working with a medical missionary organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has tested positive for Ebola and was evacuated to Germany for treatment, U.S. health officials and the aid group said.
Dr. Peter Stafford, who works with the missionary group Serge, tested positive for the Bundibugyo ebolavirus variant after being exposed during a surgery at Nyankunde Hospital in Bunia, a city in eastern Congo, the group said. Serge said Tuesday that Stafford is receiving treatment in Germany.
The case comes as health agencies try to contain a widening outbreak in Congo and neighboring Uganda. Congo’s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba, said Tuesday that at least 131 people are believed to have died in the latest outbreak. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has reported one death in Uganda, and the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a global health emergency on Sunday.
U.S. officials said the immediate risk to Americans remains low. No cases tied to the outbreak have been confirmed in the United States, and the CDC said the infected American and six other exposed Americans were expected to be moved out of the region to Germany for care, treatment or monitoring.
“Right now, there are no cases of Ebola in America. We want to keep it that way, and we are doing everything we can to support Americans in the region,” Heidi Overton, a physician working with the White House Domestic Policy Council, said Monday.
The CDC also announced a 30-day restriction on entry to the United States for people without U.S. passports who had been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan or Uganda during the previous three weeks.
Stafford has served at Nyankunde Hospital since 2023, according to Serge. His wife, Rebekah Stafford, who is also a doctor with the group, is isolating with their four young children in Congo and being monitored for symptoms. A third Serge physician, Dr. Patrick LaRochelle, is also isolating and being monitored, the group said.
The outbreak involves Bundibugyo, a less common Ebola-causing virus. Health officials have said it is only the third known outbreak of that strain. Unlike the more common Zaire strain, there is no vaccine or approved treatment for Bundibugyo, and CDC officials said work is underway on a monoclonal antibody therapy, though the timing is unclear.
Ebolaviruses spread through contact with bodily fluids such as blood, vomit or semen, making health workers, caregivers and family members especially vulnerable when caring for sick patients. Symptoms can begin with fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, then progress to vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, rash, organ dysfunction and sometimes bleeding.
The WHO has said the outbreak does not meet the criteria for a pandemic emergency, but has warned that high positivity rates and rising cases and deaths suggest the true scale may be larger than current detection and reporting show. Officials are still monitoring exposed people, arranging evacuations and assessing how far the outbreak has spread.
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