Rubio says Americans who test positive for Ebola at Kenya facility could end up being treated in US
MSF teams wearing full protective equipment reinforce perimeter barriers around a restricted Ebola isolation zone and basic hygiene facilities
By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
(CNN) — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Americans who test positive for Ebola while under observation at a facility in Kenya could be sent for treatment in the United States in an apparent shift from the Trump administration’s position that no one with the virus would be allowed into the country.
“We’re not actually asking Kenya to set up treatment for Americans. I think the one that’s been very controversial is a misunderstanding. There is a facility that the Kenyans are allowing us to open. If there are any Americans that are exposed, potentially exposed, they will be transferred to this facility for observation,” Rubio said at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing.
“If they test positive at any time while in that facility, we will remove them from Kenya and send them to the nearest treatment facility, either in Europe or in the home – or in the United States, to be treated for Ebola,” he said.
He did not provide further details.
The facility in Kenya has faced significant backlash from residents. Rubio said last week that “we cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” and officials had previously said that anyone at the Kenyan facility who develops symptoms or tests positive would be evacuated to Europe.
Neither the US Department of Health and Human Services nor the State Department has responded to CNN’s request for further details on Rubio’s latest comments.
In guidance on its website, the State Department advises that if a US citizen is asymptomatic but at high risk for exposure, “State Department and U.S. embassy staff may arrange transportation to a facility in Kenya for a 21-day quarantine period from the last date of Ebola exposure, to include access to appropriate medical care provided by expert U.S. clinicians.”
“U.S. citizens who become symptomatic during quarantine may be transported via specialized aeromedical evacuation for appropriate treatment,” the agency said, although it didn’t offer any further details on locations.
Outbreak may have started in February
A local leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo told CNN that they believe that the first Ebola case associated with the current outbreak may have occurred on February 22, months before the World Health Organization was alerted to the outbreak.
WHO was informed of a high-mortality outbreak of unknown illness in the Ituri Province on May 5, the organization has said. The DRC health ministry declared an Ebola outbreak on May 15, and WHO declared it to be a public health emergency of international concern on May 17.
The mayor of Mongbwalu, a remote gold mining town in Ituri province, told CNN’s Clarissa Ward that a coffin was burned after a body that had been in a local morgue was moved to a different coffin.
“Within two weeks of that, 48 people in his town were dead,” Ward told CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Wednesday on “Ebola: Facts and Fears,” a CNN All Access Subscriber Series event.
At first, local leaders thought tuberculosis may have been driving the deaths, she said.
They also conducted tests for Ebola, but those results were initially negative because they were looking for the more common Zaire strain, not the Bundibugyo strain that’s behind the ongoing outbreak.
“So you just lost all those weeks and weeks and weeks before they were able to identify that it was Ebola and declare an outbreak,” Ward said.
At a WHO briefing on Wednesday, officials said there is an ongoing investigation to understand the timeline of the outbreak — including field teams talking with community members to learn more. Officials said they think the outbreak started earlier, but they are waiting to complete the investigation to share a full report.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the US National Institutes of Health and the acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN during Wednesday’s event that “the estimates are that the outbreak has been going on since at least February.”
But the “first notice of it was just a couple weeks ago, and since then, we have devoted considerable resources to address the outbreak,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire
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