The latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now in neighboring Uganda is, first and foremost, a human tragedy for the people and communities struggling through it. It’s very much a crisis now. We should keep it from becoming a series of crises tomorrow.
Families in eastern Congo are once again confronting a devastating disease. Parents fear taking their children to clinics if they are sick with any illness. Health care workers place themselves at extraordinary risk each day with limited resources and overwhelming demands. Entire villages already strained by conflict, displacement, poverty, and political instability now face another layer of trauma and uncertainty.
Americans naturally take the most notice of tragedy when it strikes close to home.
The infection of an American health care worker serving in Congo and exposure by others are sobering reminders that infectious diseases recognize no borders, no nationality, and no political ideology. But it should not overshadow the far larger reality that Congolese doctors, nurses, community health workers, and ordinary citizens have carried the burden of Ebola outbreaks for years, often at enormous personal cost. They need and deserve the world’s help, including the United States.
I spent much of my U.S. foreign service career working across Africa during periods of extraordinary political and humanitarian challenges, including as Chief of Mission in Kinshasa, in the turbulent late 1960s. One lesson has remained constant: strong public institutions save lives, while weakened systems leave vulnerable populations exposed to catastrophe.
Humanitarian operations already face immense obstacles. Armed conflict, mass displacement, fragile governance, and deep public mistrust complicate every aspect of disease containment. Communities that have endured years of violence and insecurity often have understandable reasons to distrust outside authorities. Under these conditions, outbreaks become far harder to control, and ordinary civilians pay the highest price. Delayed responses and weakened preparedness systems cost millions of lives worldwide. And even before diseases spread internationally, they inflict devastating social and economic damage on the communities where they originate.
Recent protests in Kenya over a proposed Ebola quarantine facility demonstrate how outbreaks can rapidly become political and social crises as well as medical ones. When communities lose confidence that public institutions are acting transparently and fairly, cooperation weakens precisely when it is needed most. Effective outbreak response depends not only on medicine and logistics, but on public trust.
Yes, African countries themselves have built significant expertise in outbreak response through painful experience. African epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, and frontline medical teams have repeatedly contained outbreaks under extraordinarily difficult conditions. But they cannot do it alone. Their work deserves the world’s immediate help and sustained support.
That is why renewed engagement from Congress, the administration, and international partners is urgently needed. The United States should work with African governments and regional institutions to strengthen disease surveillance networks, expand laboratory and diagnostic capacity, support healthcare workforce training, and ensure rapid-response teams can be deployed before outbreaks spiral out of control.
Congress should also protect funding for global health security programs that help detect and contain emerging diseases at their source. Public health preparedness is not foreign aid in the traditional sense; it is a frontline investment in American and global security. Every dollar spent strengthening outbreak prevention abroad reduces the likelihood of far more costly humanitarian, economic, and public health emergencies later.
The most effective responses emerge through genuine partnership, supporting locally led healthcare systems, strengthening regional expertise and ensuring that African professionals and institutions have the resources necessary to lead outbreak prevention and response efforts themselves.
Global health requires recognizing the equal value of human life everywhere and understanding that preventable suffering on this scale hurts us all.
To those who live in the Congo and across the continent and to those who visit and work there, the danger today is the Ebola outbreak itself. The danger tomorrow is the weakening of American, international and local health infrastructure and research needed to contain such crises quickly and effectively. The time to act is now.
Herman J. Cohen served in the U.S. foreign service for nearly four decades, as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, as ambassador to Senegal and Gambia and at posts across Africa, including as Chief of Mission in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) from 1968-69.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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