US puts its focus on keeping Ebola cases out of the country

WASHINGTON - The United States on Wednesday said it must prevent any cases of Ebola from entering the country from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an outbreak has already caused a suspected 220 deaths and 900 cases.

The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola the third-largest such outbreak on record, and a public health emergency of international concern.

“We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday at President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting.

The Trump administration’s response, which it says aims to contain Ebola to the outbreak region, is a departure from the 2014 Ebola outbreak when the U.S. treated patients in some of its 13 specialized infectious disease centers. 

The U.S. is in talks with Kenya over opening a facility there to quarantine U.S. citizens who are exposed, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Kenya’s government has not yet approved the plan.

Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said patients would be better off in high-containment infectious disease centers in the U.S. or Germany rather than in a newly built location in Kenya.

“I can’t imagine that you can build a facility de novo in Kenya to have that same standard that we already have in these NETEC centers,” he said.

“They know how to deal with every aspect of it, from taking care of the patients to dealing with the waste, and knowing how to get the technologies there that they might need if someone needs dialysis, for example, or mechanical ventilation.”

He also said that such moves would disincentivize doctors from volunteering for the effort.

Last week, a U.S. citizen who was treating patients in the DRC as a medical missionary was confirmed to have contracted Ebola and was moved to Germany for treatment along with five others who were exposed. A seventh person was taken to the Czech Republic.

The Washington Post, citing five people familiar with the U.S. Ebola response, reported last week that the White House resisted allowing the medical missionary patient to return to the United States, delaying his evacuation and care.

US says it is working to contain Ebola

Rubio said the U.S. government has surged assistance to the region. In recent press conferences, officials have said the U.S. government sent a top CDC official to the area and committed millions in funds. 

It has also instituted travel bans on people who have traveled into the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring countries, and is screening U.S. citizens at three airports - an effort infectious disease experts say can be ineffective at stopping the spread.

The U.S. CDC last week imposed entry restrictions for 30 days on travelers who have been in the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan in the past 21 days, including lawful permanent residents, known as Green Card holders. 

It is also screening Americans traveling from those countries at three U.S. airports. The agency asked staff to volunteer for urgent deployment to support screening at the country’s entry points.

“What they’re doing here is trying to find options that don’t require bringing people back to the U.S. if they can, partially because they don’t believe they have a lot of bandwidth at facilities in the U.S.,” said Chris Meekins, who served as a health official in Trump’s first term. 

He pointed to people exposed to hantavirus on a cruise who are in quarantine.

WHO urges ceasefire in Congo to contain Ebola

The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in eastern DRC in order to contain the outbreak, saying that ongoing fighting was driving mass displacement and spreading the disease in overcrowded camps.

“Eastern DRC now faces a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict, with the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province outpacing the response,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is due to travel to the region this week.

“We cannot build community trust or isolate the sick while bombs are falling. We urge all warring parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire to contain this outbreak,” he said on X.

Over 900 suspected cases and over 200 suspected deaths have so far been reported in three provinces in eastern Congo, including the North Kivu province, held by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, and South Kivu province, controlled by the rebel group Alliance Fleuve Congo.

Aid group Save the Children said on Wednesday that a quarter of the confirmed deaths were children, calling for a scale-up in infection prevention measures.

Fighting has continued in eastern Congo despite mediation efforts led by the U.S. and others, and millions of people are displaced. The U.N. refugee agency said transit and reception sites in Uganda’s West Nile region, which borders Congo, are at more than double capacity, a document showed.

Aid groups are rushing staff and equipment to eastern Congo but attacks on medics due to community distrust have hampered efforts, they say. So far, donors have pledged around $500 million to help with the outbreak but not all has been disbursed, according to health officials.

Uganda closes border with Congo

Uganda has decided to close its border with neighboring DRC with immediate effect to try to contain an Ebola outbreak, Uganda’s government said on Wednesday.

The border would be closed for four weeks, senior health official Diana Atwine told a news conference.

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 5:57 PM.