EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION: U.S. Braces for Ebola Invasion — Experts Warn Deadly African Outbreak is Set to Go Global
The U.S. faces Ebola concerns as a deadly African outbreak raises fears of global spread.
July 4 2026, Published 8:30 a.m. ET
A deadly outbreak of the terrifying Ebola virus in sub-Saharan Africa has left public health officials fearing a spread across the globe, RadarOnline.com can reveal
At press time, the rare strain of the killer virus was already suspected of having infected more than 535 people and killing as many as 134. But officials warned those grim tallies were almost certainly undercounts of the true toll the virus was extracting.
Outbreak Sparks Global Alarm
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the Ebola outbreak a 'public health emergency of international concern.'
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized a 30-day ban on travelers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, sources said.
Dr. Peter Piot, professor of global health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a member of the team that discovered Ebola in the mid-'70s, warned the flare-up in war-torn Congo has the "potential for a much wider outbreak."
The outbreak – already the seventh worst the world has seen since the virus' discovery in 1976 – erupted in May in Congo.
It has since spread to neighboring Uganda at a "speed and scale" that led Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, to call for an emergency meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, and brand the outbreak "a public health emergency of international concern."
No Vaccine, No Cure
Dr. Peter Piot warned the Ebola outbreak in Congo has the potential to spread far beyond the region.
American surgeon Peter Stafford, an aid doctor working in the area for a Christian mission, has already tested positive for the virus and was being airlifted to Germany with others, including his wife, Dr. Rebekah Stafford, who potentially may also have been exposed, sources said.
The last known American Ebola infection dates to Liberian immigrant Thomas Eric Duncan in 2014 in Dallas, Texas. Victims are infected through contaminated blood or vomit.
But officials warn this rare strain of Ebola, known as Bundibugyo after the Ugandan province in which it was discovered, has no vaccine or effective treatment – along with a grim 30 to 50 percent mortality rate.
Delayed Response Fuels Fears
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American aid doctor Peter Stafford tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola and was being airlifted to Germany.
Officials warned they were late to diagnose the problem.
Ebola masks itself as other illnesses in its early stages – potentially allowing infected individuals to slip the quarantine that has since been imposed.
It's clear the virus spread "for quite a while" across multiple vectors before detection, Piot said. He pointed out the affected area is "highly unstable" with a great deal of "population mobility."
If officials don't precisely contain the outbreak, he added, the results could end in a "massacre."
