Health workers and humanitarian groups are scrambling to contain an Ebola outbreak spreading through eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as a former UK government minister warns that aid cuts by both the US and UK are undermining the global response to pandemics. The outbreak in DRC's Ituri province has recorded more than 390 suspected cases and at least 100 deaths, according to Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases have also been detected elsewhere in the country and in neighbouring Uganda, while Rwanda and South Sudan are on high alert. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has withdrawn a small number of American personnel directly affected by the outbreak.
Former Minister Sounds Alarm
Rory Stewart, who served as the UK's Africa minister during the 2018 Ebola outbreak, said the connection between aid cuts implemented by Donald Trump and the UK and the current outbreak is 'very strong.' Such cuts have 'huge impacts, particularly on things like global health,' he told BBC Radio 4. 'Pandemic preparedness requires lots of people on the ground in places like DRC or Uganda who are able to detect cases, respond to them, quarantine and prepare responses. And it's all the infrastructure behind that which is being undermined at the moment. And that's a real threat to the world.'
Stewart added: 'I'm not trying to start a scare in Britain around this outbreak, but what I'm hoping will happen is people will see this and realise how dangerous this is, and how much risk we're taking by not dealing with it more directly.' He described the outbreak as the 'canary in the coal mine' for future global health threats.
Outbreak Details and Challenges
Jean Pierre Badombo, former mayor of Mongbwalu, a mining town at the epicentre, said people began falling ill in April after a large open-casket funeral procession. 'After that, we experienced a cascade of deaths,' he told Reuters. The World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a 'public health emergency of international concern' over the weekend, confirming the Bundibugyo virus disease strain on 14 May. There is no approved vaccine or targeted treatment for this strain, and the WHO warned the true scale of infections is likely far greater than official figures suggest. The Bundibugyo strain has caused only two previous outbreaks, none within the last decade, and its epidemiology remains poorly understood.
Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Centre at Brown University, told The Independent that the lack of treatments and scientific understanding means researchers are 'flying blind and fighting the virus with both arms tied behind our backs.'
Impact of Aid Cuts
US foreign assistance spending fell by nearly 57 per cent after the Trump administration dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) last year. USAID had financed laboratory networks, disease surveillance programmes and emergency response capacity across Africa. Earlier this month, the administration began plans to divert an additional $2 billion in global health funding to cover the costs of shutting USAID operations overseas. In the UK, billions of pounds are being cut from aid spending as the budget falls from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of Gross National Income to fund increased defence spending.
Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who led the agency's Covid-19 response, wrote on X: 'The dismantling of US-funded health programming in DRC is likely a big factor in why this outbreak was detected so late.' He warned that the WHO, which mounted one of its largest-ever deployments for the 2018 DRC outbreak, is now 'reeling' after Trump withdrew all US funding, cutting the agency's emergency budget for health emergencies by 37 per cent and forcing it to lay off thousands of staff. 'Its emergency contingency fund is close to empty. Tough starting point to mount a major response.'
Ms Nuzzo said the outbreak bears 'the cumulative effects of cuts to a number of global health programmes, which have reduced the people and attention given to public health threats.' Lawrence Gostin, university professor at Georgetown, agreed that there are 'all the characteristics of weakened health systems, including very late detection, ongoing uncontrolled spread and deep distrust of public health workers.'
This article has been produced as part of The Independent's Rethinking Global Aid project.
