A United States citizen has tested positive for Ebola during the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The infected person has been working in the DR Congo for a humanitarian group.
This risk to the US at large is still very low, accoridng to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). No Ebola cases have been confirmed in the United States, and “the overall risk to the American public and travelers remains low,” according to the latest data published Saturday on the CDC website. The outbreak remains confined to remote areas of the DRC and neighboring Uganda, and the risk of it spreading to the US is “considered very low,” it said.
Back in May, at the beginning of this outbreak, the international charity Serge reported that an American Christian missionary physician, Dr. Peter Stafford, had “tested positive” after “presenting symptoms consistent with the virus.”
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The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the DRC has increased to 1,926, including 702 deaths, the latest government data showed, accoridng to a report by Reuters.
The virus has also spread to two more provinces in the DRC. When the virus was first declared on May 15th as DR Congo’s 17th Ebola outbreak, it stayed largely concentrated in Ituri province, with cases also reported in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. However, now that the Congolese health authorities have started tracing people potentially exposed to Ebola in Tshopo and Haut-Uélé, the two provinces are included in the government’s data.
The often fatal viral disease spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids from infected people or animals and causes symptoms that can include high fever, vomiting, and internal and external bleeding.
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Treatments are currently being tested; however, there is no vaccine for this virus, and the Bundibugyo strain has proven more difficult to spread but also more difficult to treat. Health authorities are scrambling as some workers go on an unofficial strike over poor working conditions and inadequate safety gear.
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