Rep. McCaul continues to urge US action to halt Ebola outbreak

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) is stepping up calls for more U.S. action to prevent a global Ebola outbreak, following last week’s announcement from the World Health Organization (WHO) designating the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has long-urged action from the Administration to provide more considerable aid for Ebola research and prevention methods. Since 2018, more than 1,600 deaths there have been confirmed as Ebola-related.

“I remember the 2014 outbreak that infected three people from my home state of Texas,” McCaul said. “We were fortunate that there were not more infections there or in the rest of the United States. To ensure this doesn’t happen again, we must increase attention to the crisis and encourage a coordinated international response to ensure that assistance is effective and achieving results. As we learned in 2014, containment is of the utmost importance as the risk of this horrific disease becoming a global epidemic is only an international flight away. I urge the Administration to continue prioritizing funding, including complementary development assistance efforts, to support local populations, health workers, and prevent further spread into neighboring countries.”

Though the disease has yet to spread beyond the DRC, its risk of doing so is high, especially as cases have begun to crop up in Goma, near the border with Rwanda. Already, this outbreak marks the largest of its kind in the DRC and the second largest in the world.