Many U.S. labs cannot test for Ebola strain behind Uganda's swelling outbreak

The Biden administration is racing to expand the number of U.S. labs that are able to test for the virus behind a swelling Ebola outbreak in Uganda, as health officials prepare for what they say remains an unlikely but real possibility that the virus could enter the country.

Most of the tests that were rolled out around the U.S. during a previous Ebola scare in 2014, which involved a strain known as Zaire Ebolavirus, were never authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to be used for diagnosing the Sudan strain, which is behind the current surge in Uganda.

"CDC has been very active on the domestic preparedness front and addressing exactly this issue of the lab testing has been a huge priority," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Mary Choi told a session at the ID Week conference last week.