Ebola experts from CDC were pulled from outbreak zone amid security concern
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was forced to withdraw its Ebola experts from an outbreak zone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo several weeks ago amid heightened security concerns, a decision that is fueling worry over the impact on efforts to contain the epidemic, according to U.S. officials and public health experts familiar with the matter.
The Ebola experts — among the most experienced on the planet — and other U.S. government employees have been told by the State Department that they cannot travel to eastern DRC to help with the on-the-ground response.
As a result, Dr. Pierre Rollin — a fixture of Ebola responses for decades — has been consigned to the capital, Kinshasa, more than 1,000 miles away, where he is advising the ministry of health. Other CDC staffers are helping DRC’s eastern
