American with Ebola being treated in Germany

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel ban on non-citizens from three African nations. The death toll in the DRC has reached at least 131, and that's from more than 500 suspected cases. The Africa CDC says there has also been one death in neighboring Uganda. Earlier on, the CBS Mornings News, I spoke with Admire Nyathi. He's a disaster risk management coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross. And he says about 300 volunteers are on the ground there now. But sparse funding has weakened the response effort. We all are aware that there is no approved vaccines. We are all aware that there is no other treatment, whatsoever, so everybody is afraid. But we are humanitarians. Our job is to make sure that we assist the government, reach out to the communities, and make sure that we coordinate all our efforts with other partners.

CBS News medical correspondent, Dr. Céline Gounder, is with us. She's also the editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News. And you were also an Ebola aid worker in West Africa during the outbreak from about a decade ago. So we really appreciate you being here on this. Can you tell us about the American doctor who was infected and the circumstances around that? Yeah. So an American missionary doctor, Dr. Peter Stafford, he's a surgeon trained in burn treatment. He's been working at this hospital in Bunia, in Northeastern Congo. And he tested positive yesterday for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola. Six other Americans have been evacuated with him to Germany-- his wife, their four children, and one other missionary doctor that worked with them. The adults are both considered high risk contacts, so Dr. Stafford's wife is an OB/GYN, where you also have huge exposures to bodily fluids. None of the six contacts have symptoms, only Dr. Stafford had symptoms, but everybody is being monitored. So Dr. Gounder, why are the six other Americans being evacuated to Germany and not back home to the US? We don't fully know. The CDC has said that it's because the flight time to Germany is shorter than coming back to the United States. Germany does have experience treating Ebola patients going back to the 2014 outbreak. That said, the United States has 10 or so sites, biocontainment units around the United States. Bellevue, Emory, and Nebraska Medical Center all have experience managing Ebola patients. Although right now, University of Nebraska Medical Center is full with the hantavirus exposed patients from the cruise ship. Now, we have a different health care response positioning from this administration, but we do now have a CDC travel ban for non-citizens. Explain the logic there. Yeah. So they're using a law called Title 42 to block these non-citizens from entering the US. And already, actually, there were restrictions on travel from Sudan, DRC, and Uganda. So whether this is actually going to add much more beyond the restrictions that were already in place is unclear, there's also a disconnect with how Ebola actually transmits. That's meant, really, to be for infections like COVID, which was actually used during COVID to expel some 3 million migrants over the border. But that is an infection that is transmitted when it's asymptomatic. So before people have symptoms, in this case with Ebola, you can't transmit until you are symptomatic. And it involves direct contact with bodily fluids, not through the air. The other issue with these travel bans is, one, it discourages countries from reporting they have an outbreak because they're worried about the repercussions in terms of the economics. Two, you drive people underground. So instead of taking, say, a direct flight back home, they might travel over ground and then connect in different places to obscure where they're coming from. That makes it harder for authorities to actually identify high-risk people. And then finally, it makes it harder for health care workers to get into the region to respond and help with the outbreak. All right, Dr. Gounder, so much good info there. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Doctor.