On 18 May, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that an American missionary infected with the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is being transferred to Germany for treatment. The CDC stated the patient will be treated at Charite University Hospital in Berlin following a request for assistance from the United States. A CDC spokesperson said procedures for hospitalisation and treatment are being finalised.
Organisation Serge Christian identified the missionary as Peter Stafford. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on the same day that the death toll from the outbreak of a rare Ebola virus strain in the DRC and Uganda has risen to 134, with more than 500 suspected cases. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed deep concern over the scale and speed of the outbreak's spread. The WHO response team leader in the DRC predicted the outbreak will last at least another two months.
Dr Satish Pillai, the CDC's Ebola response lead, told the press that plans are being finalised to transport six other individuals at high risk of exposure to Europe. According to him, these people will travel to Europe, including Germany, and will be quarantined throughout the monitoring period. One person will go to the Czech Republic, and the remaining will go to Germany. Pillai stressed that the current infection risk in the United States remains low and said the CDC is coordinating with local health authorities.
Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a virologist at the DRC's National Institute of Biomedical Research, said the country is awaiting a batch of experimental vaccines targeting different Ebola strains from the United States and the United Kingdom.
