An American has tested positive for Ebola while working in Congo and is being transported to Germany for treatment along with six other Americans who are high-risk contacts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The CDC also is enhancing public health screening and traveler monitoring amid a growing Ebola outbreak, and non-U.S. passport holders face entry restrictions if they have been to Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo or South Sudan in the previous 21 days.
“To the American public, the risk to the United States remains low,” said Satish Pillai, CDC Ebola response incident manager. “Travelers to the region should avoid contact with sick people, report symptoms immediately, and follow our travel guidance.”
Health experts are growing increasingly alarmed about this outbreak, arguing that cases have been spreading undetected in a volatile region as public health authorities are stretched thin amid funding cuts and the ongoing hantavirus outbreak.
World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking before the World Health Assembly on Tuesday in Geneva, said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic,” adding that WHO would convene its emergency committee that day to seek temporary recommendations.
CDC officials noted the Americans impacted are being transported to Germany, a country that has experience caring for Ebola patients and is a shorter flight from Congo. Their travel itinerary is evolving, and the CDC is looking into lab-made antibody treatments.
“We are doing this to ensure that they are at the level of care that they can receive the either treatment or observation that’s required,” Pillai said.
The American who tested positive is Peter Stafford, a doctor working for the missionary organization Serge in Congo since 2023, according to a statement put out by the group. He tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola after treating patients at Nyankunde Hospital. The group has two other physicians being monitored, including Rebekah Stafford, his wife, and Patrick LaRochelle, as well as the Staffords’ four children.
“All three medical professionals have strictly adhered to established quarantine protocols since the potential exposure,” the statement said.
On Tuesday, the group said he had been “safely evacuated” and is “receiving specialized medical treatment.” Rebekah Stafford and LaRochelle “remain asymptomatic and continue to follow established quarantine and monitoring protocols.”
The missionary organization has not returned requests for comment.
Stafford met his wife, also a physician, at medical school at Ohio State University before the family went to work in Congo, according to a fundraising page on the nonprofit’s website.
“They are excited … to participate in the work being done to share God’s love and grace for a place that has suffered so much and experienced incredible loss,” the page says.
The National Quarantine Unit in Nebraska has not received a request for Ebola patients, said spokesperson Taylor Wilson, noting it has 20 beds and 18 are occupied by people linked to the outbreak of hantavirus on a cruise ship.
Although there isn’t another federally funded quarantine unit in the U.S., there are 13 “regional emerging special pathogen treatment center” locations nationwide.
The travel screenings come under a Title 42 order that allows banning non-U.S. passport holders who have traveled from those countries for up to 30 days.
The announcement comes as the WHO has declared the outbreak to be a public health emergency with more than 500 suspected cases and 130 suspected deaths. Although the United States withdrew from the WHO officially this year, CDC officials have said they have been working with international partners and the health ministries in the affected countries. The agency also said it has been supporting response efforts through CDC country offices in Congo and Uganda to help with contact tracing, border screening, personal protective equipment and disease monitoring.
The U.S. is also coordinating with airlines, international partners and port-of-entry officials to identify and manage travelers who may have been exposed to Ebola virus.
Signed by Jay Bhattacharya, who is temporarily running the CDC, the Title 42 order says its purpose is to “reduce the risk of introduction of Ebola disease into the United States” and help establish a full public health risk profile for this outbreak.
The order notes that while South Sudan has not reported confirmed cases, “it is considered at high risk because of its close border with affected areas in eastern DRC and Uganda.”
The order highlights that travelers departing from outbreak-affected regions frequently fly through airports in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Nairobi; Doha, Qatar; and Istanbul that are connected to major U.S. gateway airports including John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Washington Dulles International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
The order said the amount of international travel increases “the likelihood that individuals exposed to Ebola virus disease could enter the United States before symptoms become apparent.”
In the largest Ebola outbreak – which killed more than 11,300 people and infected 28,600 people and was centered in West Africa from 2014 to 2016 – passengers from affected countries underwent temperature checks, answered a health questionnaire and were visually assessed for markers of disease.
The Trump administration first implemented Title 42 during the coronavirus pandemic, in March 2020. Its use triggered skepticism from public health officials at the time because the virus was already spreading widely in the U.S.
Last year, Trump administration officials also weighed issuing a public health order to close the southern border to migrants from a dozen countries, administration officials have said, but that order was ultimately not issued.
Health authorities have said they are particularly concerned about this Ebola outbreak because it was discovered after scores of people became ill. This strain of Ebola, the Bundibugyo virus, does not have a vaccine and treatment consists of supportive care, according to the CDC. This strain has death rates of 25 to 50 percent.
The CDC said patients in this recent outbreak have experienced typical Ebola symptoms: fever, headache, vomiting, severe weakness, abdominal pain, nosebleeds and vomiting blood.
Symptoms may begin within two to 21 days after contact; the average is eight to 10 days.
In Congo, the majority of cases so far have been in patients ages 20 to 39, with two-thirds of them among female patients, according to the WHO. WHO officials have said they are concerned about spread among household contacts and caregivers.
Tedros on Tuesday said that 30 cases have been confirmed in Congo, in the northeastern province of Ituri. He said two cases had been confirmed in Kampala, Uganda, as well, among two people who had traveled from Congo.
The CDC also said it is working on interagency efforts to extract Americans in the affected areas and is sending a technical expert from Atlanta to Congo at the country’s request.
The CDC announced Monday that in early May, a hospital in northeastern Congo “identified a cluster of severe illnesses affecting healthcare workers.” That has grown into the 17th Ebola outbreak in Congo’s history, one that is expected to exponentially expand in the coming weeks.
The risk of the spread was compounded, the WHO said Sunday, by “the ongoing insecurity, humanitarian crisis, high population mobility, the urban or semi-urban nature of the current hotspot and the large network of informal healthcare facilities.”
(c) 2026, The Washington Post · Lauren Weber, Lena H. Sun
