Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said Wednesday he suspects the spreading Ebola outbreak in Africa will spread across three new countries and become a “very significant pandemic.”
“I suspect this is going to become a very significant pandemic, probably going to leak into Tanzania, leak into southern Sudan, maybe leak into Rwanda,” Redfield said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”
“So, it’s going to be very disruptive,” he added.
A majority of the Ebola cases are in Congo and Uganda.
Local health officials in the two nations reported 536 suspected cases, 105 probable cases, 34 confirmed cases and around 134 suspected deaths from the outbreak, according to the CDC.
“This is an outbreak right now that is really a significant outbreak that’s of significant public health international concern, partially because what you said, it wasn’t recognized very quickly. I’m not sure why,” Redfield told anchor Elizabeth Vargas.
“Normally when we have these Ebola outbreaks, and I had three of them when I was CDC director, all of which were in the DRC, normally we recognize them when we have five, 10 cases, you know, at most,” he continued. “This one really wasn’t picked up until there was over 100 cases.”
The former CDC director added, “As you said, now there’s over 500 cases. There’s close to 150 deaths already, and it’s moving very rapidly.”
The May outbreak marks the 17th outbreak of Ebola in the region within the past 50 years, and officials said the most recent outbreak ended last December, the CDC noted.
One American worker reportedly came in contact with the virus while working in Congo and was transported to Germany for treatment.
Hellbound and Down 