The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has put out an internal request for employee volunteers to help the agency with its Ebola response, including with screenings at U.S. airports, according to three current CDC employees who spoke with MS NOW on condition of anonymity.
The request comes amid a deadly outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The CDC reports at least 1,077 suspected cases in the country, responsible for 223 suspected deaths since the outbreak was declared on May 15.
The CDC issued a blanket request for volunteers to all staff, according to a third CDC source. Volunteers would be paid their regular salary.
The CDC has reportedly terminated hundreds of employees since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over the agency, hampering its response to outbreaks. The CDC’s Global Rapid Response Team, which would typically respond to global outbreaks such as Ebola, was dissolved in late 2023 after the coronavirus pandemic and absorbed into a new structure.
According to CDC sources, agency leadership has identified potential Ebola response workers based on their skill set and experience, and asked them to volunteer. CDC employees can decline the request, and the employee’s supervisory chain must approve any response deployment.
Some of those volunteers are being asked to conduct screenings at airports. U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals who traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan since the outbreak are subject to screening within 21 days of re-entering the U.S., according to the State Department.
Select airports include Washington-Dulles International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, George Bush Intercontinental in Houston and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.
“We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday during a Cabinet meeting.
“The State Department and other agencies represented here, the Centers for Disease Control, HHS, others are working very, very hard to contain this crisis to the countries where it’s currently located, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and so we’ve surged assistance to make sure that that is being contained there,” Rubio added.
The U.S. seeks to open a quarantine facility, including biocontainment units, at an air base in Laikipia, Kenya, to monitor U.S. citizens who may have been exposed to Ebola. The facility was meant to be operational by Friday, according to Trump administration officials, but on Thursday a Kenyan court temporarily blocked the plan, citing concerns about infected patients entering the country.
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Administration officials say they received foreign approval from the president of Kenya to build the makeshift quarantine center. One official said the decision to quarantine Americans in Kenya is largely to save time transporting critically ill patients and due to airport limitations that prevent larger, long-range aircraft needed to transport patients directly to the United States.
“I’m certainly not aware of any political factors,” the official said. “Time can be of the essence when it comes to Ebola.”
No Americans have yet been identified for transfer to the facility in Kenya, according to the officials. Earlier this month, an American doctor who contracted Ebola was transported to Germany for treatment.
The decision, however, has drawn sharp criticism from both the CDC staff, according to one of the sources, and Kenyan doctors.
“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and is potentially dangerous to the individuals being treated and to the host country that does not have the same containment capacity as other countries do,” the CDC source told MS NOW.
Eighteen Americans are currently in quarantine at the United States National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska, and at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after possible hantavirus exposure aboard the MV Hondius, a Dutch-flagged cruise ship. Prior to the recent hantavirus outbreak, the NQU functioned as a treatment center for Ebola patients in 2014. Administration officials say the decision to quarantine Americans with possible Ebola exposure in Kenya rather than at the NQU is unrelated to the current hantavirus quarantine.
Peggy Helman is a desk associate at MS NOW.