JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Global health experts are urging the Trump administration to allow U.S. government disease specialists to return to northeastern Congo to help fight the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history.

The U.S. experts have been sidelined for weeks, ordered away from the region due to State Department security concerns. Health workers have compared the area to a war zone. Dozens of rebel groups are active and attacks by them have forced workers to halt Ebola containment for days at a time.

New statements in two top medical journals this week are calling on the U.S. to change its mind and send its experts back where they are sorely needed.

It's not clear how many people from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are tackling the outbreak from Congo's capital, nearly 1,000 miles away.