Robert Redfield, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has warned that the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring Uganda could escalate into a "very significant pandemic" across parts of Africa.
Redfield's Warning
"I suspect this is going to become a very significant pandemic, probably going to leak into Tanzania, leak into southern Sudan, maybe leak into Rwanda," Redfield told Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation. "It's going to be very disruptive," he added.
Delayed Detection
Redfield noted that during his tenure from 2018 to 2021, there were three Ebola outbreaks, each detected when there were 10 cases "at most." However, "this one really wasn't picked up until there was over 100 cases," he said, implying that early containment efforts were delayed.
With more than 500 suspected cases and "close to 150 deaths already," Redfield warned the outbreak is "moving very rapidly."
International Response
The World Health Organization last week declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, though it stopped short of calling it a pandemic on the scale of COVID-19.
The CDC stated on its website that "no Ebola cases associated with this outbreak have been reported in the United States, and the risk to the general public remains low." However, it has increased "public health screening and traveler monitoring for individuals arriving from the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan" and imposed "entry restrictions on non-U.S. passport holders if they have been in Uganda, DRC, or South Sudan in the previous 21 days."
