The contrast couldn't be sharper. On one side of the Atlantic, the US Centers for Disease Control is rolling out screening protocols for passengers arriving from outbreak zones in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Uganda. On the other, Europe's airports are winging it airline by airline, with no coordinated continental response in sight.
The trigger is the May 2026 declaration by the World Health Organisation that the Bundibugyo virus outbreak in the DRC and Uganda constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus voiced alarm at the pace of spread, reporting over 900 suspected cases and more than 220 confirmed deaths within weeks. The virus has already jumped from isolated rural areas into major population centers like Bunia and Goma, signaling a shift from contained to concerning.
The American response has been swift and blunt. The CDC is now screening air arrivals from affected regions and blocking entry to non-US citizens who've visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, or Uganda within the past three weeks. Visa services at the US embassy in Kampala have been suspended. These measures can shift as the situation evolves, the CDC noted, but the message is unmistakable: America is tightening its borders.
Europe's Piecemeal Approach
Europe, by contrast, is leaving it to the airlines. Brussels Airlines, which operates daily flights from Belgium to Kinshasa in the DRC (a former Belgian colony with strong travel ties), has issued statements about monitoring the situation and staying in contact with authorities. But when pressed on protective measures? The company's response was telling: "all flights are operating as scheduled, and no additional protective measures are in place."
The airline does point to cabin crew training in infectious disease protocols and procedures for evacuating sick passengers via military hospital ambulance. Yet Brussels Airlines has received no specific guidance from Belgium's Public Health Ministry, leaving decisions largely to individual carriers. This patchwork approach mirrors broader European tensions between public safety and operational continuity, not unlike what we've seen when Europe's airports have faced other crises.
Belgium's Foreign Affairs Security Ministry has formally discouraged all travel to the Ituri and North Kivu provinces at the outbreak's epicenter, but lacks the power to ban travel outright to the affected nations themselves. The European equivalent of the US CDC, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDPC), has rejected calls for mandatory entry screening across the European Union, with specialist Celine Gossner questioning whether resource-intensive airport screening actually works. The ECDPC is instead sending experts to assist the DRC with its own containment and control measures.
What This Means for Travelers
If you're planning to fly from North America to Europe, expect the screening experience to be notably different depending on your direction of travel. Heading to the US from affected regions? Prepare for health checks. Flying into Europe? You'll likely encounter minimal additional scrutiny at the airport level, though individual airlines maintain their own protocols.
For those considering trips to Central Africa, the practical reality is that both continents are watching closely but responding in fundamentally different ways. American travelers face stricter re-entry conditions, while European journeys from affected zones proceed with less formal border friction but comparable caution on flights themselves.
As of late May 2026, the European Commission hasn't received formal requests for assistance from affected nations, leaving the coordination to WHO-led efforts and bilateral support like that from the UK, which has been investing in health system capacity in Ituri Province. The divergence between American and European approaches reflects deeper questions about how much screening actually prevents transmission versus how much it disrupts essential travel and commerce. What's clear is that two continents are currently answering those questions very differently.
