U.S. Imposes Travel Restrictions on Citizens Returning from Congo

The Trump administration has imposed travel restrictions on U.S. citizens returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), requiring them to spend at least 21 days outside the country before they can enter the United States, according to CBS News. The restrictions, effective Monday, are based on updated guidance from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., citing heightened concerns about the spread of Ebola in the DRC.

The new measures prevent U.S. citizens who have traveled to or recently been in the DRC from boarding commercial flights to the United States unless they have spent 21 days outside the Central African nation, as reported by Reuters. Non-U.S. citizens who had spent time in the DRC were already restricted from traveling to the U.S.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 1,963 confirmed cases of Ebola in the DRC and 719 confirmed deaths, according to CBS News. The outbreak, which began on May 15, is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus. U.S. health authorities have noted greater community spread into western parts of the DRC, indicating that the disease is no longer confined to the eastern side.

About two dozen U.S. citizens were set to board flights to the United States on Tuesday after having traveled to the DRC, according to a U.S. official quoted by Reuters. The State Department will support these individuals during their 21-day waiting period before they can return home.

The CDC said last week that a U.S. citizen doing humanitarian work in Congo tested positive for the virus, as reported by CBS News. Meanwhile, another American infected with Ebola in the DRC has arrived in Germany for treatment, according to The Guardian. The patient, a humanitarian worker from Samaritan’s Purse working in Bunia, was transferred to Frankfurt University Hospital and is receiving care there.

According to Ars Technica, the Trump administration on Monday barred U.S. citizens in the DRC from returning home amid an Ebola outbreak that continues to outpace response efforts. The order, taken under a transportation authority known as Title 49, was independently confirmed by Politico on Tuesday.

Both Ars Technica and Reuters noted that roughly two dozen Americans who had been set to board flights home on Tuesday have already been blocked by the new rule. It remains unclear if the bar also applies to government workers, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has at least two dozen employees working in the DRC.

Seven American aid workers who had been in Congo to fight the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at a new isolation facility in Kenya after the U.S. government introduced travel restrictions, according to The Guardian. The aid workers are the first known people to quarantine at the facility, which has sparked huge opposition in Kenya and is at the heart of a legal case in which a court has ordered the work to be suspended.

Washington’s new policy says American citizens returning from the Democratic Republic of Congo must spend three weeks in a third country before entering the United States. The U.S. government is building a 50-bed bio-isolation unit on an air force base in central Kenya for asymptomatic Americans exposed to the virus in DRC or Uganda.

Many Kenyans are angered at what they see as the U.S. offloading the health risk such patients pose. Last month, Kenya’s health minister announced an immediate halt to the facility’s construction after he was found in contempt of court for failing to observe the order to halt work pending a final ruling.

“Samaritan’s Purse has seven American Disaster Assistance Response Team staff members there,” Franklin Graham, president and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, told Reuters. “None of them have any symptoms, but they are being quarantined by the Kenyan government for 21 days.”

A U.S. state department official told Reuters a group of asymptomatic Americans who had served on the front lines of the Ebola response had “voluntarily moved to the Kenya facility for precautionary monitoring and isolation”. “Kenyan authorities have authorized their movement into the facility under the observation of the US public health service clinicians,” the official said, adding that the decision was taken “strictly out of an abundance of caution.”