A rare outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there is no cure or vaccine, is spreading in Central Africa. According to health experts, the United States is barely involved in helping to contain the outbreak, following a series of domestic and global health budget cuts under the current administration.
Since April 2026, the Democratic Republic of Congo has recorded 482 suspected cases and around 116 deaths. Uganda has reported 2 cases and 1 death, while the outbreak risks spreading to South Sudan. The World Health Organization (WHO) immediately declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), even without convening a decision-making committee. Officials say the outbreak could last for months.
According to Professor Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute, the outbreak 'may have been silently spreading for months.' In the past, the U.S. was a leading partner in helping African nations respond to Ebola, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spearheading efforts. But now, that role has been reversed.
U.S. aid to the DRC fell from $1.4 billion in 2024 to $431 million in 2025, and to just $21 million in 2026. Aid to Uganda dropped from $674 million to $377 million in 2025, and is now negative $1.2 million. Ms. Kavanagh of Georgetown University called the U.S. aid cuts 'without notice' a devastating blow to one of the world's weakest health systems.
Beyond cutting aid, the U.S. has announced its withdrawal from the WHO, ending $130 million in funding, which has led to the loss of 2,371 staff. The U.S. CDC has no director, the Department of Health and Human Services has no Surgeon General, and the Food and Drug Administration has no commissioner. Ebola response teams have been suspended. A world-class Ebola laboratory at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Frederick, Maryland—which studied monoclonal antibodies and vaccines for the Bundibugyo strain—was shut down last year, with all staff abruptly laid off, and the lab's website remains inactive.
Currently, only 25-30 CDC staff are in the DRC, and the agency recently deployed just one more person. Professor Andersen commented: 'This isn't just us leaving the table; we're flipping the table.'
Instead of supporting outbreak control at the source, the U.S. has imposed an entry ban on non-citizens who have visited affected areas. The Africa CDC has called on countries to abandon 'fear-based' travel bans, stressing that the fastest path to global protection is robust support for containing the outbreak at its source.
Ms. Kavanagh emphasized: 'Letting anyone die from a preventable disease is unethical. Ebola can be stopped. The question is whether it will be stopped, and when?' She concluded: 'Without mobilizing money and public health effort, we are deliberately not stopping the outbreak.'
