If the US won’t lead on Ebola, it’s not clear who will

Ebola, one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, is spreading rapidly throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. It now also threatens South Sudan. As nations scramble to stop the outbreak, one fact has become increasingly clear: The international community can no longer count on the U.S. to lead the response to these alarming global public health emergencies.

The last Ebola epidemic killed more than 11,000 people in Africa nearly a decade ago. The U.S. played a major role in combatting the disease back then — a commitment our nation has signaled it no longer shares.

Moves by the Trump administration to strip U.S. public health agencies of experienced scientific personnel and critical resources have drastically weakened America’s capacity to wage an effective and organized response to these catastrophes. Making matters worse, the U.S. decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization has significantly hampered our nation’s ability to collect data and share information with allied partners — practices that were once critical to global U.S. health policy. 

These actions have made the U.S. and the world less safe. Once a pioneer in the worldwide fight against infectious disease, the U.S. is now playing catch-up with a deadly Ebola outbreak that could be just as devastating as the 2014 crisis.   

The U.S. response to the Ebola crisis has also created confusion and uncertainty on the part of the American people, along with a spectacular lack of accountability. 

Who, specifically, at the State Department is........

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