A US national who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has arrived in Germany for treatment, the health ministry in Berlin said on Monday, weeks after another American infected with Ebola in the DRC was treated in Berlin.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration on Monday said it was blocking American citizens in the DRC from traveling to the US on commercial flights, Reuters reported, citing a White House official.
The new American patient landed in Frankfurt overnight and was transferred to the city’s university hospital, according to the German health ministry.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the man was a “humanitarian worker” who had been in Bunia, the capital of the north-eastern Ituri province of the DRC.
Ituri is the center of an Ebola outbreak that the DRC declared in mid-May – its 17th.
The WHO had provided the infected man with “clinical care and close monitoring”, The WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on X.
“The patient has been safely transferred to Germany for continued follow-up care,” he added.
An official working for the Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse confirmed to Reuters that the patient, in his 60s, was a full-time employee of the organization working as a warehouse manager in the DRC.
The DRC’s ongoing outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus – for which there is no vaccine or cure.
There have been more than 1,900 confirmed cases in the outbreak and more than 700 confirmed deaths, according to the WHO.
The German health ministry said the US patient represented “no danger for the general population or for other patients” in the Frankfurt hospital.
“The risk of someone infected with Ebola entering Germany is very low,” the ministry said.
It added that US authorities had requested help from Germany because of the country’s expertise in treating Ebola cases and the shorter flight time from the DRC to Germany.
Another US patient with the virus was quarantined at the end of May along with his family at Berlin’s Charité hospital.
He made a recovery after two weeks of treatment.
The Trump administration’s barring Americans in the DRC from traveling to the United States on commercial flights is being done under a transportation authority known as Title 49, according to Reuters’ reporting. That will place US citizens in the DRC or those who have recently left on a “do-not-board” list until they have spent at least 21 days in a third country, Reuters reported, citing a White House official.
About two dozen Americans were set to board flights to the United States on Tuesday after having traveled to the DRC, according to the US official quoted by Reuters. Reuters reported that the US state department would support those American citizens and others affected during the waiting period.
Ebola spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids from infected people or animals – and the often fatal viral disease causes symptoms that can include high fever, vomiting and internal and external bleeding.