Conspiracy Theories Don’t Stop Ebola
The Trump administration should never have cut foreign assistance
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Recording nearly 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths, the Ebola outbreak spreading across the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is the foreseeable consequence of deliberate decisions made by the Trump administration over the past 16 months.
Cases have been confirmed in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, and reported in Kinshasa, DRC’s capital, and an American has been evacuated to Germany. The Bundibugyo strain has no approved vaccines or treatments, and experts warn the true count is far higher than surveillance is catching.
In 2024, U.S. assistance was more than 70 percent of all foreign aid to the DRC. A U.S.-funded program providing emergency health support in the region where this Ebola outbreak started lost its funding in March.
A new fee-for-service model for CDC’s global health work, which the State Department wants to begin in FY2027, would cut CDC’s funding from $2 billion to as little as $150 million. Uganda’s CDC resources would drop by at least two-thirds. At least 20 country offices would close.
Public Citizen’s Global Vaccines Access Campaign Director Liza Barrie, issued the following statement:
“This is what it looks like when stopping disease outbreaks is treated like it’s no longer our problem.”
“After the 2014 Ebola epidemic, the U.S. built laboratories in eastern DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda specifically to catch an outbreak like this one early. CDC’s global health infrastructure, with 60 country offices, 1,500 overseas staff, 1,700 molecular lab facilities, provided real-time surveillance for exactly a threat like this one. Early detection is the only thing that works against Ebola. The U.S. built that capacity over decades and dismantled it in months.”
“The U.S. left WHO over COVID conspiracy theories. USAID was destroyed by ideologues with no public health expertise. HHS Secretary Kennedy is withholding $600 million in congressionally appropriated Gavi funding, money that vaccinates children.”
“Secretary Rubio is citing CDC leadership in the Ebola response while simultaneously eliminating CDC’s global health role. The administration is improvising from the wreckage of systems it destroyed. This is a cruel embarrassment that is killing people unnecessarily.”
“The world is now far less safe. This includes Americans. The U.S. must restore the disease surveillance capability it destroyed, rejoin WHO, rebuild USAID, release the Gavi funding Congress already approved, and preserve the CDC and PEPFAR programs before more damage is done.”