Germany preparing to admit and treat US Ebola patient
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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the American had contracted the virus following exposure related “to their work” in DRC and had tested positive late on May 17.
PHOTO: REUTERS
BERLIN – Germany is preparing to admit and treat a US citizen who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the German Health Ministry told AFP on May 19.
The patient was named as medical missionary Dr Peter Stafford, who lives in DRC with his wife Rebekah, also a doctor, and their four young children, by the Christian missionary organisation Serge.
“US authorities have requested assistance from the German government in treating a US citizen who contracted Ebola in Congo,” a ministry spokesperson said.
“Preparations are currently under way to admit and treat the patient in Germany,” the spokesperson added, without saying where and when the patient would be treated.
“In Germany, there is a nationwide network of experts for the management and care of patients with diseases caused by highly pathogenic agents.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on May 18 that the American had contracted the virus following exposure related “to their work” in the DRC and had tested positive late on May 17.
Missions group Serge said Stafford was exposed while treating patients at Nyankunde hospital, where he had worked since 2023.
The group said it was “grateful for international cooperation to safely care for” the family of six and another doctor who had been treating Ebola patients, Dr Patrick LaRochelle.
It said the doctors and the family would be treated “in a location where they can undergo continued risk monitoring and receive specialised medical care”.
The German ministry did not say whether Dr LaRochelle and Dr Stafford’s wife and family, who had shown no symptoms, would also be flown to Germany.
The toll from the Ebola outbreak in DRC, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an international health emergency, has risen to an estimated 131 deaths from 513 suspected cases, Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said.
The outbreak’s epicentre is in the north-eastern Ituri province on the border with Uganda and South Sudan, whose status as a gold-mining hub leads to people regularly criss-crossing the region.
No vaccine or treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola behind the latest outbreak of the disease, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half century.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on May 19 that he was “deeply concerned” by the outbreak of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever. AFP
