US CDC raises Ebola outbreak response to highest level

By Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON, June 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. CDC raised its response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo to its highest level on Friday, but said the risk ‌of the disease spreading in the United States remained low.

The move, reserved for the most severe health crises, signals growing concern over the rare strain’s rapid spread.

The outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola has infected over 1,200 people in Congo, including 321 deaths, and 20 cases in neighboring Uganda, reaching the highest first-month total of any episode of the disease, the ⁠World Health Organization said this week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised its emergency activation to Level 1, its most severe designation, which is reserved for critical emergencies and assigns the largest number of staff possible to work the response.

Previous Level 1 responses include Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2009-2010 swine flu outbreak, the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and the 2016-2017 Zika virus outbreak.

The CDC has deployed 19 staff members overseas so far to assist its country teams with the response on the ground, Dr. Satish Pillai, the incident manager for the CDC’s Ebola response, ‌said ⁠in a briefing.

They are assisting over 125 people already on the ground as part of the CDC’s Congo and Uganda country offices, and the health ministries in both countries with data analysis, exit screenings at airports, laboratory support, and training, he said.

The CDC is also providing financial resources to partners on the ⁠ground and has trained 25 local field epidemiologists who can operate in areas that its staff cannot access, Pillai said.

The agency said last week it would make available $107 million in emergency funding to strengthen its response ⁠efforts.

The White House is seeking more than $1.4 billion in new funds from Congress to address the widening outbreak, including $800 million for a quarantine center in Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus, ⁠a Trump administration official told Reuters on Thursday.

The U.S. is sending doses of an experimental Ebola treatment to Africa and preparing to deploy 2,500 diagnostic tests to help contain the outbreak, health officials said on Friday.