Ebola outbreak rages and hundreds die in Congo as the world just watches
- Epidemiologists and aid groups are dismayed by the many indications that a pledge made years ago to stop another outbreak has been forgotten
The Ebola outbreak raging through Congo has sickened thousands of people and killed more than 1,500 – and the number of new victims continues to climb.
The situation is dire but it is hardly unprecedented. Less than five years ago, an epidemic in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, shattering communities, destroying economies and leaving a generation of orphans behind. When it was over, world leaders took a solemn vow: never again. Health officials studied the failures of their sluggish and haphazard response so they would recognise the warning signs of a crisis not to be ignored.
That crisis is now here. Yet with Ebola spreading eastward into Uganda, epidemiologists and aid groups are dismayed by the many indications that the pledge has been forgotten.
The World Health Organisation had to spend months begging for the US$98 million it needs to set up temporary health clinics and distribute vaccines that could stop the virus in its tracks. The Trump administration has banned Ebola experts from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention from entering the hot zone.
We’re seeing a steady drumbeat of death – which could boil over into a full-blown epidemic. We know better than this
And a WHO committee has turned down three chances to declare the outbreak a global health emergency, taking pressure off of high-income countries to intervene before transmission seeps into South Sudan’s refugee camps and explodes.
“Could we be repeating the same mistake we made in West Africa? Absolutely,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, who directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and served on several review commissions following the epidemic that ended in 2016.