As Ebola As the epidemic rages across Central and East Africa, public health officials say the response is hampered by the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid and global health organizations.
“We are no longer able to secure some supplies,” Amadou Bocoum, country director of the anti-poverty nonprofit CARE in the Democratic Republic of Congo, tells WIRED. “For this reason, we are unable to respond immediately.”
Bocoum says that due to funding cuts, there is a shortage of basic medical equipment such as masks and hand sanitizers, as well as components necessary for testing.
WIRED spoke with more than a half-dozen global health experts who described how the Trump administration’s decision to close the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), combined with other funding cuts, has created a strained, increasingly fragmented disease prevention and response system in the run-up to the Ebola epidemic, where a significantly reduced workforce is already struggling with burnout.
“We are way behind in this epidemic,” says a current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official with experience in epidemics. “It’s the perfect storm.”
On May 16, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola virus epidemic an emergency of “international concern”. There is no vaccine or cure for this strain of Ebola, known as Bundibugyo. There were over 530 of them confirmed cases and 134 deaths as of May 19, with both numbers being the same growing fast. According to the CDC, 25 to 50 percent people infected with this strain will die from it.
“People really need to understand that if we don’t handle this carefully, it’s very easy to get mad,” Bocoum says. “It’s really crucial that we react quickly to stop this.”
The outbreak was first identified in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo – an area bordering South Sudan and Uganda and known as a transit route for refugees. In Kampala, the capital of Uganda, cases of infection have already been confirmed in people who arrived there from the Congo. Travelers often cross the border into the region, especially at this time of year, and thousands of pilgrims will travel from Congo to Uganda for the annual event. While Uganda postponed celebration due to concerns about the Ebola virus, it is unclear how quickly news of the cancellation will spread, especially in rural communities.
In February 2025, when Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) disbanded USAID, the billionaire he said Trump administration officials say DOGE “accidentally” cut Ebola prevention funding and then restored it. However, as WIRED reported at the time, life-saving work on Ebola and other infectious diseases has not resumed. DOGE also cut the CDC, causing another key global health player to atrophy. In April 2025, the Trump administration ordered the U.S. National Institutes of Health facility tasked with researching the Ebola virus to stop testing.
Before the DOGE cuts, USAID played a key role in the DRC’s policies to prevent, treat and contain infectious diseases. The US Embassy in Kinasha, the country’s capital, excellent in 2024, that this year alone the agency has provided treatment to 11 million people for deadly diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV, and that it has played a key role in containing six previous Ebola outbreaks.
“Right now, we’re missing a huge player to respond,” a current CDC official with experience in the epidemic tells WIRED. “During these outbreaks, we worked very closely with USAID because we might be able to deploy public health immediately and provide an immediate public health response – that’s one of our mandates and goals for outbreaks at CDC – but USAID could get supplies and funding quickly, and that was one of their specialties.”