Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
The White House is planning to seek more than $1.4 billion in new funds from Congress to address the widening Ebola virus outbreak as soon as yesterday, according to a Trump administration official.
The request, which is set to be included in a larger supplemental funding request, would include $800 million for humanitarian crisis responses. That $800 million will fund a quarantine center in Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus as well as supplies, treatment, contact tracing, a regional logistics network and infection control practices.
It came as France confirmed its first case of Ebola – a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
U.S. officials are also seeking $500 million in global health security funds they say are needed to prevent the virus from spreading to the United States. That funding would include disease surveillance, laboratory capacity, and cross-border coordination, and potential partnerships with multilateral organisations and the private sector, the official quoted by Reuters said.
Another $90 million would go to diplomatic efforts, including evacuations and transportation of U.S. citizens with the virus to treatment facilities, according to the official. The funding request was not previously reported.
Congo’s Ebola outbreak is linked to the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus. It has infected more than 1,000 people and killed 267 – generating the largest number of confirmed cases within the first month of any episode of the disease, the World Health Organization said this week.
The request for funding comes as a doctor who recently returned to France from a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo tested positive for Ebola, marking the country’s first confirmed case linked to the current outbreak.
This is also the first Ebola case to have been confirmed in Europe, although an American doctor who tested positive in DR Congo was treated at a German hospital last month.
DR Congo’s neighbour, Uganda, has also confirmed Ebola cases. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said 20 people are known to have been infected there and two deaths have been confirmed.
France’s health ministry stressed that the risk to the population was “very low”. Likewise, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said “the risk to the rest of the world is low” and that there was “no need to panic”.
Efforts are underway to trace people who may have been in contact with the doctor. Healthcare workers are especially at risk from Ebola, which is spread through bodily fluids.
Last week WHO said 17 of the 75 health workers who had caught Ebola in DR Congo had died. The current Ebola outbreak was caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus, for which there is currently no vaccine.
France has set up a “dedicated monitoring system” for aid workers returning from DR Congo, the health ministry said.
According to both Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and US public health authorities, the current Ebola outbreak has the potential to be one of the largest ever, BBC said.
