Ebola Outbreak Now Third Largest Recorded and "Spreading Rapidly" (opens in new tab)

> the US has “abdicated its longstanding role as a leader in global health and humanitarian response.”

It’s interesting to note that in the end, there was no one else coming: we were it. A large amount of disease containment and control was just fronted by the United States. As the US declines, it’s not that a new leader will come in. It’s not that the Chinese century will have their massive industrial engine put to the tasks that America put hers to. It’s just that things won’t get done.

Sobering, really, that despite all the ascendance of new powers (who do not yet share the norms) and the noble aims of the old (who are too weak), one year after the US left no one has filled the gap.

Grok is very defensive of Elon's role in the current Ebola outbreak. However if you push on Elon impacting Ebola monitoring, it will eventually admit that Elon's DOGE cancelled "some" Ebola prevention efforts very briefly, but in reality many Ebola related contracts and programs were not fully restored. "Surveillance capacity in eastern DRC weakened, contributing to the current Bundibugyo Ebola strain circulating undetected for an estimated 6–8 weeks before confirmation."

This unfortunately won’t be news again until, and I think this is now an until versus if, we find evidence the disease is spreading uncontrollably outside the DRC.

Like Trump 1.0’s handling of COVID, this outbreak is going to spread further and faster than it would have if the US continued to pay for international health initiatives.

Those initiatives inevitably cost far less than the economic impact of outbreaks (the US is currently diverting international travelers), but the best deal maker in the history of the universe says they’re a “bad deal”, so the rest of the planet gets to suffer.

Another Congo Ebola special: 17th outbreak since disco, hundreds 'suspected,' headlines screaming apocalypse. Same bat country, same fear cycle.

You are only infectious during illness and it requires contact with fluids. It's exasperated by local funeral rituals where people interact with the dead body and get infected.