US doctor infected with Ebola critically ill but says he is ‘cautiously optimistic’

(NEW YORK) — The American doctor infected with Ebola said he is “cautiously optimistic” about his health improving amid more severe symptoms.

Dr. Peter Stafford contracted the disease while working with patients in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was evacuated to Germany to receive specialty care and is currently hospitalized at Charite University Hospital in Berlin.

“Before I was evacuated I was feeling really concerned I wasn’t going to make it, and now I’m cautiously optimistic,” Stafford said in a press release from Serge, the international Christian missionary group that employs him.

His colleague, Dr. Scott Myhre, Serge area director for East and Central Africa, said Stafford is critically ill but feeling better than he did on Wednesday, and is able to eat small amounts of food.

Stafford initially experienced what are known as “dry” symptoms such as fever, aches and fatigue.

However, he is currently experiencing “wet” symptoms including vomiting and diarrhea. Myhre said Stafford’s laboratory reports are “trending slightly in the right direction.”

“Peter has also received two intravenous treatments designed to improve Ebola outcomes,” Myhre said in the press release. “The German care teams rotate in three-hour shifts since they must wear full-body hazmat suits as they care for him. We’re thankful for their dedication and expertise.”

On Wednesday, Stafford’s colleague, Matt Allison, executive director of Serge, told ABC News that the doctor has been receiving monoclonal antibodies during his hospitalization.

Stafford’s wife, Dr. Rebekah Stafford, and their four children landed in Berlin at 10 p.m. local time Wednesday and have been moved into a separate space at Charite University Hospital. All are asymptomatic and will continue to isolate and be monitored, according to Serge.

The organization added that Stafford’s family is able to see him through a window.

Meanwhile, another Serge missionary physician, Dr. Patrick LaRochelle, is currently at Bulovka Hospital in Prague. He is quarantine and remains asymptomatic, Serge said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday announced new arrival restrictions for flights carrying people who were recently in Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan amid the Ebola outbreak in the region. 

Flights will be ordered to land at Washington-Dulles Airport in Virginia, the notice said, where “enhanced public health measures are being implemented.”

The Ebola outbreak in the eastern DRC had caused 139 suspected deaths with nearly 600 suspected cases as of Wednesday, according to an update from World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Tedros said cases of Ebola have been reported in several urban areas of the eastern DRC amid the ongoing outbreak, including the major cities of Goma and Bunia, and that at least two cases and one death have been recorded in neighboring Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Cases have also been reported among health workers, according to Ghebreyesus.

At least 51 cases have so far been confirmed in the ongoing outbreak. 

The DHS flight restriction notice said that while South Sudan has not reported any confirmed cases in the current outbreak, “It is considered at high risk because of its close border with affected areas in eastern DRC and Uganda, limited healthcare infrastructure and cross-border population movement.”

The outbreak was first detected in the DRC’s northeastern province of Ituri, with cases officially confirmed by the health ministry on May 15. It marks the 17th outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the DRC, which is Africa’s second-largest country and its fourth-most populous nation. 

The WHO convened an emergency committee on Tuesday night, following Tedros’ declaration of a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday — one level below a pandemic in the United Nations agency’s alert system. 

It was the first time a WHO chief had declared such an emergency before convening the emergency committee. After the meeting, the committee agreed that the outbreak did not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency, which was applied to the global COVID-19 outbreak.

Anais Legand, the WHO’s technical officer for viral hemorrhagic fevers, said on Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak may have started a couple of months ago and that investigations are ongoing.

“Our priority is really to cut the transmission chain by implementing contact tracing, isolating and caring for all suspects and confirmed cases,” she said.

The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare variant of Ebola for which there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics and which requires different diagnostics than other variants. Case fatality rates for previous Bundibugyo outbreaks have ranged from 30% to 50%, according to the WHO.

Dr. Satish K. Pillai, incident manager for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Ebola response, confirmed at a CDC press conference on Tuesday that genetic testing from this outbreak shows it is similar to the “genetic fingerprints” from outbreaks in 2007 and 2012, meaning there are diagnostic tools available that can detect this strain of Ebola.

Pillai said on Monday that the agency had activated its Emergency Operations Center through its country offices in the DRC and in Uganda, and is deploying technical experts that have been requested from Atlanta headquarters.

The risk to the U.S. general public remains low, Pillai said.

Also on Monday, the CDC introduced entry restrictions on non-U.S. passport holders that had been in Uganda, the DRC or South Sudan in the previous 21 days before attempted entry into the U.S.

ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss, Mary Kekatos and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.