The ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the topic of a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee this week, highlighting successes and failures in the fight against it.
Foremost, it was shown that the outbreak not only remains, it is still largely uncontained thanks to civil strife and violence in the African nation. This does not mean that efforts made to help the nation are not having an effect. Experts testified that U.S. investments in biomedical research and global health security have led to a vaccine administered to more than 87,000 people. It has also contributed to increased surveillance and preparedness efforts in neighboring nations, greatly reducing the risk of a pandemic — all things at risk if a White House budget proposal for 2020 passes.
That budget proposal would dramatically cut funding for the CDC, the Center for Global Health — as well as global HIV and tuberculosis efforts — the National Institutes of Health, the National Center for Zoonotic and Infectious Diseases and its Antibiotic Resistance Solutions Initiative. The risk is great enough it has spurred the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association to call for sustained funding, lest domestic and global health efforts suffer, especially as antimicrobial resistance gains traction.
To date, the Ebola outbreak in the DRC has claimed 584 lives and spawned 922 confirmed cases.