Travel limits widen as the Ebola outbreak moves faster than the response

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on May 18 that it was suspending entry for 30 days for travelers without a United States passport who had been to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, or Uganda. The step was tied to the Ebola outbreak underway in those countries. It was one of the first broad entry limits announced that week as case numbers kept moving.

On May 19 the death toll in eastern Congo rose to 131. Sudan began screening passengers at the international airport in Port Sudan. The World Health Organization said the next day that the outbreak in eastern Congo likely began about two months earlier in a superspreading event and had initially gone undetected.

An Air France flight from Paris to Detroit was diverted to Montreal because a passenger was from Congo and United States flight restrictions were in force. India and the African Union postponed the India-Africa Forum Summit that had been set for New Delhi from May 28 to May 31. India, South Korea, and Thailand issued travel alerts, and South Korea planned a level-4 travel ban for parts of Congo, especially Ituri.

Uganda temporarily suspended flights to and from Congo, and the United States temporarily paused deportation flights to Congo. In Ituri, residents protesting the handling of the public health crisis set an Ebola treatment center ablaze after police fired warning shots and tear gas. The World Health Organization later said it counted 139 suspected Ebola deaths in Congo and expected the numbers to rise.

On May 22 the World Health Organization raised the risk inside Congo from high to very high because of the rapid spread, while keeping the global risk low. Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the outbreak in Uganda was stable. Ituri's provincial government ordered funerals to be handled only by specialized personnel, limited public gatherings to no more than fifty people, and suspended the local football league.

Rwanda imposed a travel ban on foreign nationals who had been in Congo in the previous thirty days and required quarantine for Rwandan citizens or residents who had been there. United Nations emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher said the organization was providing 60 million dollars for the response. The International Red Cross said three local volunteers had died of Ebola in March while working in Djugu Territory, and Uganda confirmed three new cases, bringing its total to five cases and one death.