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Public Health Watch

Ill-Prepared, Less Safe: Trump Gutted USAID and Exited WHO, Now Administration Behind The Curve On Ebola Global Health Emergency

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May 18, 2026
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Washington D.C. – On Saturday, the World Health Organization declared the spread of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda a ‘global health emergency’ with now at least 10 confirmed cases, 336 suspected — including ‘a number of Americans’ — and 88 deaths. As the NYT notes: “The U.S. Agency for International Development has played a major role in containing previous outbreaks, but last year it was shuttered by the Trump administration. … The administration also cut funding for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and [also] withdrew in January from the W.H.O.”

Bloomberg lays out the ‘deadly cost’ of those mindless decisions: “The Trump administration’s withdrawal of health funding that once helped support outbreak detection across parts of Africa represents the kind of cuts that contribute to the erosion of disease-surveillance systems. Health officials say the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola may have circulated undetected for six to eight weeks in northeastern Congo before lab testing confirmed the virus. By the time Ebola was identified, suspected cases and unexplained deaths had already spread across multiple health zones near the Ugandan border. Such systems built with international aid often serve multiple purposes: tracking outbreaks, transporting laboratory samples and monitoring unexplained illnesses in remote regions. When funding disappears, those networks weaken quickly.” 

“If history is any guide, the administration must be fully vigilant and prepared to deal with the potential of this deadly disease reaching America’s shores, or the situation could get ugly fast,” said Leslie Dach, Protect Our Care founder and Chair, who served in the Obama Administration as the HHS global Ebola coordinator. “Without proper procedures and guardrails in place, people could get very sick and die. But Donald Trump has deliberately left us the opposite of prepared by gutting Ebola and pandemic-preparedness infrastructure at home and abroad. The CDC is now flying blind after Trump and Republicans shuttered USAID and cut themselves off from WHO’s global resources – destroying our disease surveillance and response capability just so billionaires could have another tax break. Whether it’s measles, Hantavirus, or Ebola, the deep Trump cuts to research, public health staff and infrastructure have left the nation ten steps behind – always putting out public health fires rather than preventing them.” 

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