Extracts below. Full text: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/health/ebola-congo-united-states-trum...
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Efforts to Contain Ebola May Have Been Hindered by Lack of U.S. Involvement
Aid cuts by the Trump administration have shut down crucial disease surveillance networks and medical supply chains in East Africa.
The Ebola crisis in East Africa is rapidly escalating, with cases now confirmed in major population centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Public health experts around the world and health workers on the ground say that the response has been significantly hindered by the near-absence so far of the United States, historically the leader in any major outbreak.
The United States used to fund robust disease surveillance networks across the region and maintained emergency teams to take charge in public health crises like this one. Much of that work ended with the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development early last year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also lost hundreds of experts, including some in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who could have helped contain the epidemic...
American officials did not learn of the outbreak until Thursday, nine days after the World Health Organization did, and almost a month after the first person died. The delay in confirming the outbreak was in part because samples were taken to the national lab in Kinshasa, Congo, at the wrong temperature. That task previously would have been managed by U.S.A.I.D...
“The health system is on its knees here,” said Heather Kerr, the country director for Congo for the humanitarian organization International Rescue Committee.
“Everything to do with the logistics of an Ebola response in its first phase, we would have hoped to see some U.S. funding for that,” she said...
“It is false to claim that the U.S.A.I.D. reform has negatively impacted our ability to respond to Ebola,” said Tommy Pigott, a spokesman for the department...
Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the C.D.C., did not answer questions about staffing or how many C.D.C. officials have been deployed to Congo. “C.D.C. is fully equipped to protect Americans and mitigate risks through experts in this disease area,” he said in an emailed statement.
The Trump administration has also indefinitely paused research at one of the few institutes worldwide with the high-security facilities needed for studying Ebola.
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org