By Robbie Gramer and Sabrina Siddiqui
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. is pausing visa issuance for any travelers who have been in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda within 21 days of planned travel to the U.S. as part of a response to contain a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak, according to officials and internal State Department documents.
Lawful permanent residents who have been to those countries within the last 21 days will also be prevented from entering the U.S. for a period of time.
The new travel restrictions, which were detailed in internal State Department cables described to The Wall Street Journal, come as the Trump administration is working to respond to a deadly Ebola outbreak that is on track to be the worst in at least a decade.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is coordinating with Kenya's Ministry of Health on efforts to prevent cross-border spread there, and it is deploying staff to Uganda to surveil and coordinate a response, officials said. No cases of Ebola have been reported in Kenya, while Uganda has reported two cases.
Although officials say the risk of Ebola's spreading in the U.S. remains low, the Trump administration has in recent days surged new resources to central Africa -- a part of the world where it previously slashed foreign-aid funding.
The outbreak, stemming from a strain called Bundibugyo, has been fueled by the conflict-ravaged area in which it occurred. As of Friday, there were 177 suspected deaths and 750 suspected cases, according to the World Health Organization.
Some public-health officials have said that Trump administration's decision last year to dismantle the top U.S. foreign-aid agency left the region ill-prepared for a disaster response.
The State Department pushed back on the criticism and pointed to a five-year, $1.2 billion agreement on public health that it signed with the DRC government in February as an example of its continued funding for health initiatives in the region.
"We mobilized a wide-ranging response within 24 hours of being informed, " State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said of the Ebola outbreak.
The U.S. on Wednesday diverted a Detroit-bound Air France flight to Canada over fears of a passenger's possible Ebola exposure, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Thursday.
"Objective number one is to make sure that Ebola never reaches the United States," Rubio said. "Objective number two is do what we can to help the people of DRC and neighboring countries so it doesn't spread."
The Trump administration last year dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and folded its remnants into the State Department while cutting U.S. foreign-aid funding worldwide.
The cuts, some officials argue, gutted the network of regional health institutions and local nonprofit organizations in Central Africa that would have been positioned to potentially help identify and contain the Ebola outbreak early on.
The outbreak spread quickly before it was officially identified as a deadly Ebola strain by the WHO on May 15.
It originated in the remote and conflict-ravaged Ituri province of eastern Congo, where health infrastructure is extremely limited and Islamic State-affiliated extremists and other rebel groups operate.
Unlike other strains of Ebola -- a viral hemorrhagic fever -- the Bundibugyo strain has no current authorized vaccine or treatment. With far less data available about the rare strain, health officials said there are fewer medical interventions to lessen its spread.
The U.S. announced this week it allocated $23 million in funding to help tackle the outbreak and said it would fund up to 50 treatment clinics to Ebola-affected regions.
The CDC has mobilized international response efforts, including disease surveillance and contact tracing, laboratory testing and viral sequencing, and distributing protective equipment in hard-hit areas.
In 2014, health officials in West Africa first identified the Ebola outbreak when there were 49 cases. Even with such early identification, the outbreak spiraled into the deadliest Ebola epidemic in history, infecting more than 28,000 people and killing more than 11,000.
The current outbreak was identified when there already were 246 suspected cases, making its spread potentially more difficult to contain, said current and former officials.
Write to Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com and Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 22, 2026 19:26 ET (23:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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