With millions of soccer fans and tourists set to travel to 11 U.S. cities hosting the World Cup in the coming weeks, public health officials are wary of potential risks from infectious diseases, such as the Ebola outbreak racing through Central Africa.

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The Ebola outbreak that's raging in Africa could rival the outbreak that hit West Africa a decade ago, resulting in upwards of 20,000 cases and 4,000 deaths within the next three months alone.

These projections appear in new analyses from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which modeled just how widespread the current outbreak could get.
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An outbreak of Ebola disease is sweeping through Central Africa and it has the World Health Organization very concerned it could spread to other parts of the world. Watch here to learn more and find out What’s Going On.

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The Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could grow to 20,000 cases or more, depending on how quickly infected people are isolated to slow the spread, according to a new analysis by U.S. health officials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a range of scenarios generated by computer models Friday, spanning from 10,000 cases to more than 20,000. If accurate, a worst-case scenario could approach the worst Ebola outbreak in history, the West Africa epidemic in 2014-2016 — which resulted in more than 28,000 reported cases and more than 11,000 deaths.

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As of Friday, there have been at least 63 deaths and 397 confirmed cases of Ebola in Central Africa, according to health officials.

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, joined 12 News at 4 Friday to share more about the recent outbreaks of both Ebola and the hantavirus.

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Thousands of tourists are set to descend upon Southern New England for the World Cup amid an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, a reality that has some Americans concerned.

But in a briefing from the Brown Pandemic Center, led by Craig Spencer, a Brown professor who treated Ebola patients in Africa in 2014, top scientists asserted the deadly virus should not be a major concern for the United States.

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The U.S. plan to respond to the Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak just experienced a serious setback.

On Tuesday, Kenya’s High Court extended its order to block the proposed U.S. quarantine center in Kenya for U.S. citizens exposed to Ebola in the unfolding outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

Healthcare officials in the US, including former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials, on June 1 warned Congress against adopting a proposed policy to treat Americans exposed to Ebola in Kenya or countries in the European Union.

As natural outbreaks, laboratory accidents and the deliberate misuse of biological agents converge into an increasingly complex threat environment, Africa’s ability to prevent, detect and respond will depend on a sustained investment in the people capable of doing so.

By the time Craig Spencer was checking his temperature twice a day, President Trump had already spent the summer railing against bringing home American aid workers who contracted ebola in west Africa.

“People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!” Trump wrote at height of the last outbreak 12 years ago. “Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!”

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By the time African health officials confirmed the world’s latest Ebola outbreak, the epidemic had already spilled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo into neighboring Uganda. Within two days, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public-health emergency of international concern. Less than two weeks later, the potential case count has risen past 1,000, including more than 230 deaths, and 10 other African countries have been designated at risk of being swept into the crisis.

When Craig Spencer contracted Ebola while working in Guinea during the West African outbreak in 2014, he was already back in the United States when he first developed symptoms. He credits the treatment he got at New York’s Bellevue Hospital for his survival.

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