The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo poses a threat not only to the rest of Africa but also to the U.S., and the government should do more to help contain the outbreak, wrote the editorial board of Bloomberg.
Three Ebola cases across the Ugandan border and two in Goma, an international city near Rwanda, have heightened the risk that Ebola could spread to crowded urban areas in Africa, the authors wrote. There's also a potential risk in the U.S., where several Congolese refugees have appeared at the southern border. Yet the U.S. has so far responded with indifference, the authors wrote, providing very little aid.
President Donald Trump's administration has eliminated the National Security Council's global health-security portfolio. It planned to take away $252 million in leftover 2014 Ebola funds the day after the new outbreak began but later changed its mind: Congress restored many of the funds. Now, the U.S. is hesitating about whether to grant the DRC a waiver giving it access to tens of millions of dollars for the response.
The World Health Organization announced last week it needs $324 million to fight Ebola over the next six months, which is three times more than it has received so far. The U.S. should ramp up its efforts to fight the disease and provide more funding, the authors wrote. It should also partner with China, the DRC's largest foreign investor, in providing the aid.