Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said that the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in multiple African nations may reach into other parts of the continent, becoming a “very significant pandemic.”
“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 said in an interview with NewsNation that aired Wednesday. “So, it’s going to be very disruptive,” he added.
Currently, the outbreak is centered in two provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, although cases have been reported in neighboring Uganda to the east.
Redfield said that the current outbreak is unusual because it was not “recognized very quickly” before international officials made declarations about it. Over the previous weekend, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was a public health emergency of international concern, while U.S. officials quickly moved to limit travel from African nations that may be impacted by the outbreak.
“Normally when we have these Ebola outbreaks, and I had three of them when I was CDC director, all of which were in [Congo], normally we recognize them when we have five, 10 cases, you know, at most,” Redfield said. “This one really wasn’t picked up until there was over 100 cases.”
On Friday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk posed by the outbreak to the world is low. But he added the U.N. health agency was revising upward its assessment of the risk within Congo from its previous categorization of “high” to “very high.”
The WHO chief noted that 82 cases have been confirmed in Congo, with seven confirmed deaths, although he said the outbreak is suspected to be “much larger.” There are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, he added.
“The situation in Uganda is currently stable, with two confirmed cases, and one death reported,” he said in a statement released through social media. “There have been no new cases or deaths reported. We are supporting the government with their prevention and response efforts.”
Congo’s eastern neighbor Rwanda said on Friday it would deny entry to all foreign nationals who had traveled to or transited through Congo in the last 30 days and would require quarantines for Rwandan nationals or residents who had been in the country during that period.
The U.S. State Department has also restricted travel from Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan in recent days. On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new order, published in the Federal Register, that restricts flights from South Sudan, Congo, and Uganda to only land at the Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
A U.S. national who was working in Congo has been confirmed to have the virus and has been transferred to Germany for care. The national, a doctor, is not critically ill, officials have said.
Redfield was the head of the CDC under the first Trump administration, from March 2018 until January 2021. Notably, he was in charge of the CDC’s response efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic starting from 2020 until he left office.
Reuters contributed to this report.