Trump slashed more than 30 CDC experts and 140 USAID staff who managed the 2018 Ebola outbreak on the ground in the DRC.
By Sasha Abramsky ,
June 4, 2026
Health care workers put on personal protective equipment before going to examine patients at the Ebola Treatment Center in Munigi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on June 2, 2026.Jospin Mwisha / AFP via Getty Images
In 2018, when the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) experienced a severe Ebola outbreak, more than 30 experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), close to 20 disaster-response specialists from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and 120 additional USAID staff were on the ground attempting to manage the outbreak, according to estimates from Friends of USAID, an advocacy organization mainly made up of ex-USAID staffers. With that level of staffing in 2018, by and large, they succeeded in limiting the extent to which the disease spread.
This year, as a particularly virulent strain of the Ebola virus — the Bundibugyo strain, against which there is no approved vaccine and for which there are no medicinal cures — runs rampant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friends of USAID estimate there is only one CDC staffer on the ground there, along with five additional State Department personnel. There are of course no USAID workers present, since the Trump administration dismantled USAID during the purges led by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) in 2025, summarily firing local health care contractors around the world, including in countries with extreme poverty rates such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In addition, since Donald Trump signed an executive order pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization in early 2025 — a pullout that was completed in January of this year — CDC experts are no longer allowed to communicate with World Health Organization personnel. And despite a waiver having been granted for Ebola-related correspondence, in practice there has been a significant breakdown in communication between the two agencies over the past year — a breakdown promoted by the Trump administration, which recently sent out an email reminder to CDC staff not to correspond with the World Health Organization.
The consequences have already been devastating. In past Ebola outbreaks, even before mass testing of disease victims got underway, the CDC and USAID were able to tell when an epidemic was picking up steam based on on-the-ground medical observations and data about excess mortality figures. And, in response, they were able to position medical resources effectively.
In the current outbreak, the decimated remnants of the CDC were caught unawares, only finding out about the outbreak once hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people had already been infected — thus making it far more likely that this outbreak will prove particularly difficult to corral.
Trump Admin Cuts to USAID, WHO, Likely Stalled Response to Ebola, Experts Warn
“Facilities in affected areas are operating without basic protective supplies” due to cuts to USAID, one expert said. By Chris Walker , Truthout May 26, 2026
Because so many experts have been fired over the past 16 months, and because political overseers have been limiting what the remaining scientists can say and write, “the CDC is not really functional anymore,” Angela Rasmussen, professor of virology at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told Truthout. Rasmussen, who also serves as science chair for the Save America Movement, a nonpartisan organization that works to stop ongoing assaults on public health, added that the administration was no longer bothering to consult remaining CDC experts when making policy to respond to the outbreak. “It used to be an evidence-driven process and now it’s a political-driven process,” Rasmussen said.
“I equate it to having the mayor’s office taking on a fire without having a fire department or a fire hose.”
“I equate it to having the mayor’s office taking on a fire without having a fire department or a fire hose,” Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told Truthout. Daskalakis, who resigned last August because he was so concerned about the direction that the Department of Health and Human Services was taking under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership, says that when faced with grave public health challenges, the administration is simply resorting to “a lot of posturing, with, I think, bad consequences.”
Faced with the twin public health emergencies of the Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, alongside the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship from which people disembarked to the four corners of the Earth, the Trump administration’s response has been, at best, ad hoc. Instead of implementing expert-driven protocols, it has leaned on its nativist instincts to simply attempt to lock the virus out. That attempt proved a colossal failure during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, according to Rasmussen and Daskalakis, the signs are not auspicious for it being a successful strategy against the global health crises of 2026.
For U.S. residents exposed to hantavirus, the Trump administration has ordered mandatory 42-day quarantines in a secure facility in Omaha, Nebraska — despite the fact that experts say the virus doesn’t spread easily and that home quarantine would be just as effective. For U.S. residents exposed to the Ebola virus in Africa, the response has been to refuse them entry back into the United States and to instead have them isolated and, if need be, treated in Kenya — a situation that Rasmussen and other experts say makes little sense given the huge investments made over the past decade in secure biocontainment units in the U.S. “They’re throwing evidence-based risk assessment out the window, and are trampling people’s 14th Amendment rights,” Rasmussen told Truthout. “If we’re going to take Americans’ freedom away, there should be a real basis for that — and there’s not.”
Telling people in the U.S. that if they get exposed to the Ebola virus, they won’t be allowed back into their home country for months is, experts believe, a surefire way to discourage U.S. doctors and public health professionals from heading to Africa to try to contain the outbreak. In other words, it is a strategy all but guaranteed to make a bad situation worse.
“It took so long for the CDC to say anything about hantavirus or to hear from the DRC about Ebola. Relationships that took decades to build have simply disappeared.”
At the same time, African victims of the disease, who could certainly benefit from access to the treatment center being established in Kenya, are being deliberately excluded from it. “There’s an equity issue,” Daskalakis says of this policy. This, too, will end up hurting public health, as the Ebola patients denied access to the Kenyan facility will, in all likelihood, end up spreading the disease further in their communities or in poorly resourced medical facilities to which some eventually may turn.
Aryn Backus, a CDC employee who has been on administrative leave for more than a year since her job was targeted by DOGE, and who is now deputy executive director of the National Public Health Coalition, told Truthout that the ham-handed U.S. response to the outbreak overseas makes it more likely that the disease will ultimately find its way to the United States. “Diseases don’t understand borders,” she said. And, without detailed international coordination, the likelihood of their spreading far and wide grows.
“We are seemingly not at the table anymore,” Daskalakis added, as he detailed the myriad ways that the U.S.’s role as global public health leader has been corroded. “It took so long for the CDC to say anything about hantavirus or to hear from the DRC about Ebola. Relationships that took decades to build have simply disappeared.”
In 2018, when the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) experienced a severe Ebola outbreak, more than 30 experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), close to 20 disaster-response specialists from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and 120 additional USAID staff were on the ground attempting to manage the outbreak, according to estimates from Friends of USAID, an advocacy organization mainly made up of ex-USAID staffers. With that level of staffing in 2018, by and large, they succeeded in limiting the extent to which the disease spread.
This year, as a particularly virulent strain of the Ebola virus — the Bundibugyo strain, against which there is no approved vaccine and for which there are no medicinal cures — runs rampant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Friends of USAID estimate there is only one CDC staffer on the ground there, along with five additional State Department personnel. There are of course no USAID workers present, since the Trump administration dismantled USAID during the purges led by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) in 2025, summarily firing local health care contractors around the world, including in countries with extreme poverty rates such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In addition, since Donald Trump signed an executive order pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization in early 2025 — a pullout that was completed in January of this year — CDC experts are no longer allowed to communicate with World Health Organization personnel. And despite a waiver having been granted for Ebola-related correspondence, in practice there has been a significant breakdown in communication between the two agencies over the past year — a breakdown promoted by the Trump administration, which recently sent out an email reminder to CDC staff not to correspond with the World Health Organization.
The consequences have already been devastating. In past Ebola outbreaks, even before mass testing of disease victims got underway, the CDC and USAID were able to tell when an epidemic was picking up steam based on on-the-ground medical observations and data about excess mortality figures. And, in response, they were able to position medical resources effectively.
In the current outbreak, the decimated remnants of the CDC were caught unawares, only finding out about the outbreak once hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people had already been infected — thus making it far more likely that this outbreak will prove particularly difficult to corral.
Trump Admin Cuts to USAID, WHO, Likely Stalled Response to Ebola, Experts Warn
“Facilities in affected areas are operating without basic protective supplies” due to cuts to USAID, one expert said. By Chris Walker , Truthout May 26, 2026
Because so many experts have been fired over the past 16 months, and because political overseers have been limiting what the remaining scientists can say and write, “the CDC is not really functional anymore,” Angela Rasmussen, professor of virology at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told Truthout. Rasmussen, who also serves as science chair for the Save America Movement, a nonpartisan organization that works to stop ongoing assaults on public health, added that the administration was no longer bothering to consult remaining CDC experts when making policy to respond to the outbreak. “It used to be an evidence-driven process and now it’s a political-driven process,” Rasmussen said.
“I equate it to having the mayor’s office taking on a fire without having a fire department or a fire hose.”
“I equate it to having the mayor’s office taking on a fire without having a fire department or a fire hose,” Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told Truthout. Daskalakis, who resigned last August because he was so concerned about the direction that the Department of Health and Human Services was taking under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership, says that when faced with grave public health challenges, the administration is simply resorting to “a lot of posturing, with, I think, bad consequences.”
Faced with the twin public health emergencies of the Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, alongside the hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship from which people disembarked to the four corners of the Earth, the Trump administration’s response has been, at best, ad hoc. Instead of implementing expert-driven protocols, it has leaned on its nativist instincts to simply attempt to lock the virus out. That attempt proved a colossal failure during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, according to Rasmussen and Daskalakis, the signs are not auspicious for it being a successful strategy against the global health crises of 2026.
For U.S. residents exposed to hantavirus, the Trump administration has ordered mandatory 42-day quarantines in a secure facility in Omaha, Nebraska — despite the fact that experts say the virus doesn’t spread easily and that home quarantine would be just as effective. For U.S. residents exposed to the Ebola virus in Africa, the response has been to refuse them entry back into the United States and to instead have them isolated and, if need be, treated in Kenya — a situation that Rasmussen and other experts say makes little sense given the huge investments made over the past decade in secure biocontainment units in the U.S. “They’re throwing evidence-based risk assessment out the window, and are trampling people’s 14th Amendment rights,” Rasmussen told Truthout. “If we’re going to take Americans’ freedom away, there should be a real basis for that — and there’s not.”
Telling people in the U.S. that if they get exposed to the Ebola virus, they won’t be allowed back into their home country for months is, experts believe, a surefire way to discourage U.S. doctors and public health professionals from heading to Africa to try to contain the outbreak. In other words, it is a strategy all but guaranteed to make a bad situation worse.
“It took so long for the CDC to say anything about hantavirus or to hear from the DRC about Ebola. Relationships that took decades to build have simply disappeared.”
At the same time, African victims of the disease, who could certainly benefit from access to the treatment center being established in Kenya, are being deliberately excluded from it. “There’s an equity issue,” Daskalakis says of this policy. This, too, will end up hurting public health, as the Ebola patients denied access to the Kenyan facility will, in all likelihood, end up spreading the disease further in their communities or in poorly resourced medical facilities to which some eventually may turn.
Aryn Backus, a CDC employee who has been on administrative leave for more than a year since her job was targeted by DOGE, and who is now deputy executive director of the National Public Health Coalition, told Truthout that the ham-handed U.S. response to the outbreak overseas makes it more likely that the disease will ultimately find its way to the United States. “Diseases don’t understand borders,” she said. And, without detailed international coordination, the likelihood of their spreading far and wide grows.
“We are seemingly not at the table anymore,” Daskalakis added, as he detailed the myriad ways that the U.S.’s role as global public health leader has been corroded. “It took so long for the CDC to say anything about hantavirus or to hear from the DRC about Ebola. Relationships that took decades to build have simply disappeared.”
Inside DR Congo’s Ebola Fight: Faith, Fear, And Trust
.jpg)
Health teams in personal protective equipment (PPE) respond to the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo. Photo Credit: WHO/Joël Lumbala
June 6, 2026
UN News
By Vibhu Mishra and Cristina Silveiro
In a village in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), health workers arrived a few days ago to help bury a person who had died from Ebola. Instead, they were threatened, told armed rebels would be called if they stayed, and forced to leave.
The family carried out the burial themselves – potentially exposing dozens more people to the virus.
The incident offers a stark illustration of one of the biggest obstacles facing efforts to contain the latest deadly epidemic, which has infected 381 people and claimed 64 lives in DRC as of 3 June.
For Marie Roseline Belizaire, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Preparedness and Response Director for Africa, the most challenging part is not always the virus itself – it can be sitting with families who believe the disease is caused by witchcraft, persuading traditional healers to work alongside health teams or health teams returning to communities that threatened them – only days earlier.
“We are not trying to overcome their culture,” she said. “We’re trying to involve the science in their own belief.”
Progress, but not yet control
The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus – for which there is no vaccine or treatment – continues to spread in eastern DRC while cases have also been reported across the border in Uganda.
Speaking to UN News from Bunia, in Ituri province, Dr. Belizaire said the response has made significant gains in recent weeks, particularly in testing capacity.
At the start of the outbreak, laboratories could process about 40 tests a day. That capacity has now expanded to 800 daily tests, allowing suspected cases to be confirmed or ruled out much more quickly.
“All the tests that we are receiving, we are rolling them out at the same day, almost,” she said. “The time to expect your result has been reduced. Twenty-four, maximum 48 hours you have the result.”
Community alerts are first investigated in the field, with those meeting the outbreak’s case definition tested and either confirmed or ruled out – allowing suspected cases to be cleared from the system more quickly than at the start of the outbreak.
Firmer trace
Contact tracing rates have improved from around 25 per cent to 45 per cent, but that remains far below the 90 to 95 per cent coverage needed to effectively contain transmission.
“We still have a lot of challenges,” she said, adding that the outbreak’s regional dimensions remain a concern.
Uganda has recorded 15 confirmed cases and one probable case linked to the outbreak. One Congolese national also travelled through the United Arab Emirates before arriving in Uganda, highlighting how quickly infectious diseases can move across borders.
“When there is an outbreak and you have mobility, it is always a concern,” Dr. Belizaire said, stressing however that mechanisms such as WHO’s International Health Regulations help countries share information rapidly and coordinate responses.
Trust in public health
For WHO teams on the ground, one of the most complex tasks is building trust. Many communities in affected areas have experienced years of conflict and insecurity. Cultural beliefs and misinformation can also shape how people interpret illness and death.
“The disease symptoms are very malaria-like in the community,” Dr. Belizaire explained.
Some families attribute deaths to witchcraft or poisoning rather than infection.
Health workers therefore focus on coexistence rather than confrontation.
“We don’t stop them to believe in witchcraft, to believe any other things in their culture,” she said. “We just ask them to simultaneously believe in the disease existence also.”
Ancient and modern
Traditional healers are also being engaged as partners rather than excluded.
“We don’t stop them going to traditional healers,” she said. “We ask [the healers], if you see someone with those symptoms, refer it also to us.”
The approach reflects lessons learned from previous Ebola outbreaks, where mistrust often proved as dangerous as the virus itself.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who recently visited the outbreak’s epicentre, warned that “misinformation is almost as dangerous as the virus itself, and spreads just as fast.”
Reasons for hope
Despite the difficulties, there have been encouraging signs. Seven people have recovered from Ebola, including six healthcare workers.
Most sought treatment early and received intensive supportive care, including rehydration and treatment for symptoms while their immune systems fought the infection.
“They recovered because they went early to the hospital,” Dr. Belizaire said.
Candidate vaccines under development
There is currently no licensed vaccine or approved treatment for the Bundibugyo strain, although candidate vaccines are under development.
But Dr. Belizaire stressed that even a vaccine would not replace the need for early detection and treatment.
“The key is, as soon as you have symptoms, you go to the healthcare centre,” she said.
A survivor’s determination
Among the encounters that have stayed with Dr. Belizaire most is that of a healthcare worker who contracted Ebola while caring for a patient. The female medic later recovered.
Rather than leaving the profession, she said she intends to continue serving others.
“She said she will not stop,” Dr. Belizaire recalled. “She said she was born to give care to others, and it is what she will continue doing.”
That story reflects the resilience of health workers and communities confronting the outbreak every day.
.jpg)
Health teams in personal protective equipment (PPE) respond to the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo. Photo Credit: WHO/Joël Lumbala
June 6, 2026
UN News
By Vibhu Mishra and Cristina Silveiro
In a village in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), health workers arrived a few days ago to help bury a person who had died from Ebola. Instead, they were threatened, told armed rebels would be called if they stayed, and forced to leave.
The family carried out the burial themselves – potentially exposing dozens more people to the virus.
The incident offers a stark illustration of one of the biggest obstacles facing efforts to contain the latest deadly epidemic, which has infected 381 people and claimed 64 lives in DRC as of 3 June.
For Marie Roseline Belizaire, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Preparedness and Response Director for Africa, the most challenging part is not always the virus itself – it can be sitting with families who believe the disease is caused by witchcraft, persuading traditional healers to work alongside health teams or health teams returning to communities that threatened them – only days earlier.
“We are not trying to overcome their culture,” she said. “We’re trying to involve the science in their own belief.”
Progress, but not yet control
The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus – for which there is no vaccine or treatment – continues to spread in eastern DRC while cases have also been reported across the border in Uganda.
Speaking to UN News from Bunia, in Ituri province, Dr. Belizaire said the response has made significant gains in recent weeks, particularly in testing capacity.
At the start of the outbreak, laboratories could process about 40 tests a day. That capacity has now expanded to 800 daily tests, allowing suspected cases to be confirmed or ruled out much more quickly.
“All the tests that we are receiving, we are rolling them out at the same day, almost,” she said. “The time to expect your result has been reduced. Twenty-four, maximum 48 hours you have the result.”
Community alerts are first investigated in the field, with those meeting the outbreak’s case definition tested and either confirmed or ruled out – allowing suspected cases to be cleared from the system more quickly than at the start of the outbreak.
Firmer trace
Contact tracing rates have improved from around 25 per cent to 45 per cent, but that remains far below the 90 to 95 per cent coverage needed to effectively contain transmission.
“We still have a lot of challenges,” she said, adding that the outbreak’s regional dimensions remain a concern.
Uganda has recorded 15 confirmed cases and one probable case linked to the outbreak. One Congolese national also travelled through the United Arab Emirates before arriving in Uganda, highlighting how quickly infectious diseases can move across borders.
“When there is an outbreak and you have mobility, it is always a concern,” Dr. Belizaire said, stressing however that mechanisms such as WHO’s International Health Regulations help countries share information rapidly and coordinate responses.
Trust in public health
For WHO teams on the ground, one of the most complex tasks is building trust. Many communities in affected areas have experienced years of conflict and insecurity. Cultural beliefs and misinformation can also shape how people interpret illness and death.
“The disease symptoms are very malaria-like in the community,” Dr. Belizaire explained.
Some families attribute deaths to witchcraft or poisoning rather than infection.
Health workers therefore focus on coexistence rather than confrontation.
“We don’t stop them to believe in witchcraft, to believe any other things in their culture,” she said. “We just ask them to simultaneously believe in the disease existence also.”
Ancient and modern
Traditional healers are also being engaged as partners rather than excluded.
“We don’t stop them going to traditional healers,” she said. “We ask [the healers], if you see someone with those symptoms, refer it also to us.”
The approach reflects lessons learned from previous Ebola outbreaks, where mistrust often proved as dangerous as the virus itself.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who recently visited the outbreak’s epicentre, warned that “misinformation is almost as dangerous as the virus itself, and spreads just as fast.”
Reasons for hope
Despite the difficulties, there have been encouraging signs. Seven people have recovered from Ebola, including six healthcare workers.
Most sought treatment early and received intensive supportive care, including rehydration and treatment for symptoms while their immune systems fought the infection.
“They recovered because they went early to the hospital,” Dr. Belizaire said.
Candidate vaccines under development
There is currently no licensed vaccine or approved treatment for the Bundibugyo strain, although candidate vaccines are under development.
But Dr. Belizaire stressed that even a vaccine would not replace the need for early detection and treatment.
“The key is, as soon as you have symptoms, you go to the healthcare centre,” she said.
A survivor’s determination
Among the encounters that have stayed with Dr. Belizaire most is that of a healthcare worker who contracted Ebola while caring for a patient. The female medic later recovered.
Rather than leaving the profession, she said she intends to continue serving others.
“She said she will not stop,” Dr. Belizaire recalled. “She said she was born to give care to others, and it is what she will continue doing.”
That story reflects the resilience of health workers and communities confronting the outbreak every day.
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