The United States announced on Monday a strengthening of health controls at the border against the Ebola virus, an epidemic outbreak of which has infected an American citizen in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Washington will implement health checks for air travelers from affected countries in Africa and temporarily restrict the issuance of visas for foreigners who have traveled to these areas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the main health agency in the United States, announced.

These announcements come as the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) an international health emergency.

The CDC had stated over the weekend that it was working on "the safe repatriation of a small number of Americans directly affected by this outbreak".

An American citizen contracted the virus "as part of his work in the Democratic Republic of Congo," the CDC announced Monday.

This individual presented "symptoms over the weekend and tested positive late Sunday," and arrangements are currently being made to transfer him to Germany for treatment, said Satish Pillai, in charge of Ebola management at the CDC.

"At this time, the CDC judges the immediate risk to the U.S. population to be low, but we will continue to assess the situation and may adjust public health measures based on new information that becomes available," the health agency said in a statement.

In addition to checks carried out at airports, the CDC announced the implementation of entry restrictions for foreign nationals who have traveled to Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or South Sudan in the past 21 days.

The US Embassy in Kampala announced the temporary suspension of all its visa services and indicated that affected applicants had been notified.

- Withdrawal from the WHO -

There is no vaccine or specific treatment against the strain responsible for the spread of this highly contagious disease.

According to the latest figures published Sunday by the DRC's Minister of Health, Samuel-Roger Kamba, 91 deaths are linked to the current resurgence of cases.

Approximately 350 suspected cases have been reported, and most of those infected are between 20 and 39 years old.

The United States, under the presidency of Donald Trump, officially withdrew from the WHO this year and reduced its funding to its Agency for International Development (USAID), which was heavily involved in the response to previous Ebola outbreaks.

The CDC has stated that it is collaborating with international partners and the health services of the affected countries. The measures announced Monday include "the deployment of CDC personnel to support efforts to control the outbreak in the affected regions," as well as assistance with laboratory testing and contact tracing.

But Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Center for Global Health Policy and Politics at Georgetown University in Washington, considers the US response "disappointing".

For him, border controls are "more like theater than effective public health measures".

According to him, in the past, Washington responded quickly to Ebola outbreaks by coordinating the actions of the CDC, USAID, and non-governmental organizations.

"The Trump administration claimed it could negotiate bilateral agreements to bypass the WHO. This epidemic shows that this strategy does not work," Mr. Kavanagh told AFP.

"This epidemic has been going on for weeks and we are only now discovering that there are hundreds of victims," he added, judging the Trump administration to be "in a mess."