Ebola Outbreak In Dominican Republic Of Congo
HOWELL: Welcome back to our viewers around the world. You're watching CNN Newsroom. I'm George Howell.</s>ALLEN: I'm Natalie Allen. The headlines this hour. The New York Times reports U.S. President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran but abruptly called them off Thursday night. One official says according to the Times, the planes were in the air and ships in position when word came to stand down. The stripes were meant as retaliation for Iran's downing of a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz.</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR: In Hong Kong this hour. Live images showing you the scene of what's happening on the streets there just outside of the police station. Thousands of protestors gathered and they want the government to withdraw a controversial bill that would make anyone in Hong Kong subject to extradition to mainland China. The bill was suspended by the chief executive last week, but protestors say that's not enough. They wanted scrapped entirely.</s>ALLEN: Turning now to Georgia, riot police there clashing with protestors outside of the country's parliament. Thousands of people turned out to demonstrate against the government which they say is collaborating with Russia. Several people were hurt as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets.</s>HOWELL: We're turning now to our breaking news and top story. The New York Times reporting that President Trump approved military strikes against Iran, but then abruptly pulled back.</s>ALLEN: And the big question. Why where the planes apparently called off?</s>NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST: We don't know whether he backed off, we know that the strikes were not carried out and that maybe that he changed his mind. Perhaps at the behest of the Pentagon. It may also be that, you know, that there was cloud cover, that logistics weren't right that they missed their night window to hit its warning in Iran. So, maybe they missed the window. This may still be happening. So, you know, we don't know that he has changed his mind and the real risk is here of enormous escalation that just keeps on going.</s>ALLEN: As it stands now, the first time we expect to see President Trump on Friday is at an event late in the afternoon. Of course, that could always change especially since there are so many questions.</s>HOWELL: Earlier our colleague John Voss spoke with Samantha Vinograd to get her take. Samantha, a CNN national security analyst and former adviser to the U.S. National Security Council. Here's what she had to say.</s>SAMANTHA VINOGRAD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: This will be seen as all Barr can no bite. President Trump has escalated tensions to this point and response to Iranian as a behavior, but at this point, John, this is kind of a worst-case scenario. The president is showing that since we made a decision, how the national Security Council meeting and wasn't willing to follow through which is really parts of the course when we look at this posture on North Korea, for example. We are fire and fiery until we weren't. And this (Inaudible), this is all already going to play right into the Iranian regime's hand. They will now be able to say, that the United States is planning to attack them. And that if any further actions that they take are purely defensive in nature. They don't blame the victim part for several months, now several years even, and they now have even more fuel to say that the United States is coming after them and that they have to respond. Having been part of these kinds of conversations in the Situations Room before, I often really wonder what kind of message this is sending to our closest allies extensively the U.S. military would had brief. Some of its counterparts if not all before the planes took off and the ship were put into position, only to them have to call them back and say, the president changed his mind, who flip-flop. So, all in all, it shows gross this organization and the president who can't seem to make up his mind even on something as important as a military strike on Iran.</s>JOHN VOSS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here's a little more from The New York Times. The report -- it was not clear whether Mr. Trump suddenly changed his mind on the strike or whether the administration over cause, because of logistics or strategy. It was also not clear whether the attacks might still go forward. In your experience, having been in the national security council and from what you know about the past U.S. military strikes, has anything like this happen before that they were like minutes away from flying the missiles, you know, and the president says no?</s>VINOGRAD: It sounds like a really bad action thriller John. And in my experience, the military develops (inaudible) or the plans for a strike like this, they are finally tuned, they're fully ready to go and if the planes really had taken off. If they were really 90 minutes away from a strike. I don't see how logistics would've been really messes up. The military preposition assets. It is unlikely to a logistical failure would had been what pulled this operation back. It sounds more likely that the president change his mind or somebody convinced him that this is not the right strategy. And I don't disagree on that, launching military strikes to against Tehran would had been met at a minimum with the strong counter response from Iranian proxies and potentially Iranian forces from within the country itself, let's not forget that Houthis in Yemen, Iranian proxies, all throughout the region and really American that are in the region as well could had been vulnerable to counterattack in places like Iraq and elsewhere. And so, it would had been a misguided strategies to perceive with the strike. Not to mention John, I'm very unclear on what the legal basis for the strikes were -- would had been. There is no Congressional authorization to launch a military strike in Iran. And so for all those reasons, the reporting is accurate I'm very glad that the president change his mind or pulled this back for whatever reason.</s>ALLEN: Sam Vinograd there earlier on CNN, of course we will continue to follow the story. A reminder, President Trump does have an event in the afternoon, but we'll wait and see if perhaps he says something about this or makes a statement as we approach more in a few hours.</s>HOWELL: Absolutely. Now to the Ebola virus that's spreading fast through northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. This is the second largest, the second deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded.</s>ALLEN: The World Health Organization has recorded more than 2000 Ebola cases there with more than 1400 confirmed and probable death. The U.N. refugee agency says hundreds of thousands of people had had to flee a recent uptick and violence this month and health officials worry this could -- they could take Ebola with them. Are David McKenzie got a rare look inside the treatment center there. He joins us now live from Goma, Congo. And you saw the treatment that people were getting and it was heartwarming especially considering what they're going through?</s>DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, yes, this is a disease that is both very intimate and can affect communities and entire region that is what's doing and the area that I'm standing in north (inaudible) in the eastern DRC. That violence you described Natalie is a very big worry. It has push people out of their zones and this means people are moving and if they are infected, they could move it even further into areas which are hard to reach and difficult to respond to. This outbreak has taken many health responders by surprise. It continues to spread and there's no sign of it stopping.</s>MCKENZIE: Dr. (inaudible) enters this exhausting battleground. We're a transparent barrier isolates a highly contagious Ebola patient from the outside world. His team rushes to stabilize a young woman who lost her baby and her husband to the virus. The death rate in this outbreak nearly 70 percent. Sometimes you forget even for myself, this is my third Ebola outbreak, the terror that this strikes into people, when people come here, they feel they might die. In fact, they believe there's a good chance they will, but if they're inside there, they'll be able to see the eyes, the emotions, the care of the doctors and also for the family members coming in, they'll be able to interact with them, they are no longer isolated in the same sense. They call these new units the cube. The family can begin to trust us say Dr. (inaudible), because they can see with their own eyes that we are caring for the loved ones. Its design a hard lesson learned from the 2014 West African epidemic, where Ebola killed more than 11,000. This time around, teams are also armed with an effective experimental vaccine. Advances that meant this outbreak was supposed to be different. It wasn't supposed to last as long or kill so many. Ten months later, it is still spreading, for the vaccine to work the teams need to be able to reach all of this, but this is eastern Congo. A region wrapped by decades of violence where armed groups continue to thrive in a dysfunctional state. The most trusted community is understandable.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's at stake here is whether we can break this transmission or not. If it continues to be interrupted, it's likely that the virus will continue to propagate.</s>MCKENZIE: And what would that mean for this region and further global health?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It remains a threat to surrounding provinces, it remains a threat to surrounding countries. So we cannot let it spread.</s>MCKENZIE: For the spread to stop, (Inaudible) needs to work. Keeping track of those most likely to become infected. So that is 36.8. So that is safe?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that is safe.</s>MCKENZIE: Unlike so many health workers here are being threatened even enough by his terrified neighbors. Sometimes all the world knows is fear, but then I look at the individual people. We need to treat these patients with empathy he says, we need to treat them like they're a member of a family. In the nearby crash, Ebola survivors are now immune to the disease, like Masima (ph) become family to young babies, to wait to see if they're infected mothers will live or die. You have a smile on your face. Why do have a smile on your face? My smile is the joy of being alive she says. I beat Ebola, I'm smiling to the god who gave me life.</s>MCKENZIE: Well, Natali, George, I'm joined now by Doctor Ben Dahl of the Center For Disease Control, the U.S. base group and now their operations are here in Goma. Now Dr. Ben Dahl, in the first seven months you saw a thousand cases then a rapid acceleration. Did this surprise the CDC nature of this outbreak?</s>DR. BEN DAHL, U.S. CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: No it didn't. When we look at the underlying indicators, a very low percentage of cases being effectively followed and effectively isolated. It really was a poignant that we would see this acceleration and some of our CDC models had somewhat predicted this.</s>MCKENZIE: But it seems that could caught many people by surprise, they thought perhaps that an experimental vaccine would be the magic bullet. Why isn't it in this outbreak?</s>DAHL: Well, I think, were very fortunate to have this vaccine. It has really probably reduced in some of the cases, I think without this we would have a much larger number of cases. But really what has happened is they have not been doing the public health fundamentals of quickly following all the context, listing all the context, and isolating them as soon as they become symptomatic.</s>MCKENZIE: Why is that important? Why is it important to trace those contact?</s>DAHL: It's because this contacts could become a case. So a contact is around the case. If they were developed symptoms and become a case, then they can spread the disease onward.</s>MCKENZIE: We are here in Goma, right next to Rwanda, this is a border region, we've had a case move into Uganda. Why is this a particularly dangerous outbreak from a public health standpoint?</s>DAHL: Well, it's an area that previously had not been experience with Ebola outbreaks. And most of the Ebola outbreaks have been in other areas of Congo, and if it were to get into Goma which is a heavily populated area, we will be concerned that you would have cross border transmission. That you have transmission within Goma, and that's one reason why the U.S. government is focusing on preparedness here in Goma.</s>MCKENZIE: Why is this important for the world to pay attention to this outbreak after that large outbreak in 2014, but it was felt that maybe the lessons would be learned. What hasn't been learned?</s>DAHL: Well, I think that each outbreak is unique, but that we need to quickly try to work to control each outbreak. And so this potentially could've been controlled earlier in the outbreak, when it was in the rural area, but letting it go fester a little bit underground with unknown chance of transmission, has really prolonged it, and we really need to make sure we can do everything we can to stamp it out now.</s>MCKENZIE: The communities we met were mistrustful. They felt that Ebola was a myth, that the outsiders were coming in to do something bad to them. How is the Ebola response need to be part of a wider response for people who have been neglected for so long?</s>DAHL: That is a very good point. We have seen that this community has been neglected for over the past 20 years. And so they were asking, why are you coming in to treat a disease we have never seen before, when you've not been here to treat measles? They've had 70,000 cases of measles this year. You've not been here when we had community violence and so there were some of that questions. So we need to really pivot to have better community engagement, and I think it's something that on all levels, the ministry of health, WHO, the U.S. Government are working with them to pivot that way.</s>MCKENZIE: It seems there's been a restructuring of the response. What needs to happen now to really stamp this out?</s>DAHL: Well, I think they need to maintain a level of surveillance in all areas. We are seeing that there are cases back in where -- the area where it started. And so, you need to make sure that the surveillance is continuing in all areas, we need to again, go back to community engagement, hire local people that can speak the local languages to be part of it and really ensure that the committee understand that they are at risk, and that seeking treatment early is the key to them surviving.</s>MCKENZIE: The WHO Emergency Response coordinator call this a new normal. The CDC and WHO is dealing with health emergencies all over the world, possible pandemics. Why is the work that you do so critical for global public health?</s>DAHL: Well, I think, in the public health community, we all work together. We are a key part of the ministry of health, we work very closely with WHO, and so no one stands alone. We need to do this together. And really the key to public health is early detection. If this had been detected and limited to the couple cases when it started back in May, we would not be talking about this now, but it was a breakdown in the public health fundamentals of having good surveillance to detect extraordinary events like this.</s>MCKENZIE: Thank you, Dr. Dahl and that's something, Natalie and George that I had been hearing a lot in our time in North (inaudible) that the fundamentals are key to stamping out this virus and if those aren't done in the next few days and weeks, we could see a very long, protracted, very dangerous outbreak. Natalie? George?</s>ALLEN: Excellent reporting and that interview as well. David McKenzie for us, thank you so much, David.</s>HOWELL: Millions of people desperate for water at scorching temperatures have made an already bad situation even worse. The story ahead here on Newsroom.