(NewsNation) — A leading physician and entrepreneur is raising concerns about how long the Ebola virus can survive in the human body, and warning that the standard 21-day monitoring window may not be enough.

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, executive chairman of ImmunityBio, said research from Washington State University shows the virus can persist in the body for hundreds of days after infection — including in breast milk and semen.

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“Once Ebola patients get the infection, the latency and persistence can continue for hundreds of days,” Soon-Shiong said. “The question is, with the 21-day incubation period, do we get concerned about that? There’s a lot of unknowns.”

Soon-Shiong says health authorities are “taking a very proactive stance to treat patients who are very, very ill,” he said, adding that many patients in the current outbreak have severely compromised immune systems.

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The warning comes as the outbreak continues to strain an already vulnerable region. Nearly 980,000 people have been displaced across Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo , complicating efforts to contain the spread, director-general of the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

Health workers on the ground say community awareness of Ebola risks is high, but access to clean water, sanitation and contact tracing still need to be significantly scaled up.

Officials say response efforts will continue until the outbreak is over.

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