Washington D.C. – Today, the Trump State Department is patting itself on the back for kicking in some money to a United Nations fund for “up to” 50 treatment clinics in Ebola-impacted regions of the Congo and Uganda – a desperate, belated effort to save face after the Trump administration eliminated USAID that decimated America’s disease surveillance and response capabilities, allowing Ebola to ‘rage for weeks in the Congo before anyone raised the alarm.’
“The Trump administration thinks it can now close the barn door after the horses are long gone and call it a job well done. Donald Trump axed USAID and its disease response infrastructure to fund billionaire tax breaks, leaving the U.S. in the dark and ten steps behind as Ebola spread undetected for weeks. Trump and his unqualified cronies have done nothing but ‘f-around’ with resources that keep Americans safe from global health threats, and now they offer 11th-hour band-aid solutions as we enter the ‘find out’ stage,” said Leslie Dach, Protect Our Care founder and Chair, who served in the Obama Administration as the HHS global Ebola coordinator.
HOW TRUMP’S SENSELESS USAID CUTS AND W.H.O. WITHDRAWAL HAVE LEFT AMERICANS VULNERABLE:
- NYT: Ebola Raged for Weeks in Congo Before Anyone Raised the Alarm: “This has been out of control for weeks, clearly,” said Atul Gawande, a former senior official at the United States Agency for International Development. “Speed is everything. From when the first case happens is critical.” He said that the Trump administration’s closure of U.S.A.I.D. had already impeded the response to the outbreak.
- Bloomberg: Ebola Spread Shows Deadly Cost of Aid Retreat: For years, the US financed networks of laboratories, epidemiologists and emergency-response programs through agencies including USAID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those systems were designed not only to combat diseases such as HIV and malaria, but to identify dangerous pathogens before they spiraled into regional crises. … 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.
- Nation of Change: Trump’s Ebola response cuts face renewed scrutiny as deadly outbreak spreads through Central Africa: Public health advocates say the outbreak illustrates broader vulnerabilities created by reductions in disease preparedness programs, research funding, and international coordination. Leslie Dach, founder and chair of Protect Our Care and former Health and Human Services global Ebola coordinator during the Obama administration, warned that weakened surveillance systems could leave both foreign and domestic populations exposed to greater risks. […] “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,” Dach said in a statement Monday. “Without proper procedures and guardrails in place, people could get very sick and die,” Dach continued. “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.” Dach also linked the current outbreak to a broader erosion of public health infrastructure during the Trump administration.
- STAT: Trump’s cuts to foreign aid are undermining the Ebola response, insiders say: For years, the United States has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into programs to prevent and control infectious diseases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But in the months leading up to a fast-moving Ebola outbreak, the Trump administration slashed aid to the country, leading to a cascade of consequences that probably hampered the detection of the outbreak and the response to it, six people involved in or familiar with the efforts in the region said. Now, the DRC is experiencing the third-largest Ebola outbreak on record. Experts estimate 130 people have died and at least 600 are sick, including an American. The U.S. government has closed its border to people who are from or who have traveled recently in the area, fearing the spread of the disease.
- The Bulwark: Trump Decimated Our Global Health Network. Then Ebola Hit. : [L]ast time around, Trump was a political agitator, leading a chorus of critics screaming that the administration then in power—i.e., Barack Obama’s—wasn’t doing enough to seal off Americans from the rest of the world. Now Trump is the president. … USAID isn’t part of the American effort this time. Trump and his then-adviser Elon Musk effectively killed the agency last year.
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