Rubio Pledges Strict Ebola Screening as U.S. Opens Kenya Treatment Hub
Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged on Wednesday that the United States will not permit entry to anyone infected with the highly contagious Ebola virus currently spreading in central Africa, signaling a hard-line approach to a growing public health crisis.
“We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” Rubio declared during a cabinet meeting at the White House convened by President Donald Trump. He added that the State Department and other federal agencies “are working very, very hard” to contain the outbreak, which is centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Rubio’s comments came as the Trump administration moves to open a specialized treatment facility for American citizens in Kenya, rather than evacuating them back to U.S. soil for medical care—a departure from how previous Ebola outbreaks were handled. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to AFP that the “state-of-the-art facility” is being established in Kenya.
“The facility is designed to provide access to high-quality care for Americans who would need to quickly get out of DRC and quarantine without the risks of a lengthy transport back to the US,” the official said. Patients will receive a “full-spectrum” of care for Ebola Virus Disease, and “each case will be evaluated for forward transport for more advanced care as appropriate in order to maximize patient outcomes.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Kenyan facility is still awaiting approval from local authorities. Kenya has not recorded any Ebola cases, but health officials there are racing to contain a fast-spreading outbreak of a rare Ebola variant in the neighboring DRC.
The outbreak has already claimed more than 220 lives, and the World Health Organization reports over 1,000 suspected infections. However, international health authorities caution that the true toll is likely higher, as surveillance systems in the affected region remain strained.
Last week, one American citizen who contracted Ebola in eastern DRC—medical missionary Peter Stafford—was evacuated to an isolation unit in Germany along with his wife and four children. Charité Hospital in Berlin reported Wednesday that Stafford is responding well to treatment.
Under newly tightened U.S. protocols, all American citizens who have visited the DRC, Uganda, or South Sudan within the past 21 days will be allowed to enter only through airports in Washington, Atlanta, and Houston, where they will undergo mandatory screening. Meanwhile, U.S. permanent residents who have traveled through or stayed in those countries within the same period face a temporary 30-day ban on entry.
Rubio stressed that the U.S. government has “surged assistance to make sure that … nobody comes into this country that has Ebola and creates a problem for us, and we feel like we’ve got good efforts in place to do that.”
The response reflects a broader balancing act: containing a dangerous pathogen at its source while minimizing the risk of domestic transmission—and avoiding the political fallout that a single case on U.S. soil could trigger.