Key Takeaways:
The U.S. is repeating the mistakes of the 2014 Ebola crisis by prioritizing border measures over source containment, John Kerry and Vanessa Kerry argued Tuesday, as suspected cases in Central Africa topped 1,000.
"Outbreaks are stopped locally, one community at a time," John Kerry, former U.S. secretary of state, and Vanessa Kerry, CEO of Seed Global Health, wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "People must trust health workers. Families must cooperate with contact tracers. Burials must be safe."
The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on May 17 after the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola was detected in the Democratic Republic of Congo in late April. The DRC has reported 282 confirmed cases and 42 deaths as of May 31, with 264 of those cases concentrated in Ituri province, according to the health ministry. Uganda has confirmed 15 cases, including one death. The strain has no approved vaccine or targeted treatment, according to the WHO.
The 2014 West Africa outbreak infected about 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000 before the U.S. deployed 3,500 personnel and approved $5.4 billion in emergency funding. The current U.S. response has focused on screening protocols and a planned 50-bed quarantine facility in Kenya — a plan a Kenyan court suspended May 29 over public health concerns. The CDC briefly limited entry for travelers from the DRC, Uganda and South Sudan.
The Cost of Delayed Action
The authors argue that the most effective way to protect Americans is by helping the DRC, its neighbors and the WHO contain transmission at the source. Contact tracing coverage in the DRC stands at 45 percent, with 220 suspected cases still under investigation, the health ministry said. The outbreak went undetected for weeks before crossing into Uganda, according to the WHO.
The 2014 experience shows the cost of hesitation. When the U.S. mobilized — building treatment centers, training health workers and supporting safe burial teams — the outbreak was eventually contained. The current administration still has time to deploy technical expertise, expand treatment centers and strengthen supply chains, the authors said.
"The costs of waiting, in dollars and lives, are vastly greater than the costs of acting now," Kerry and Kerry wrote.
The dismantling of USAID, cuts to global health funding and the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO have left gaps in disease surveillance and response, they said. In contrast, an Ebola outbreak in Uganda last year was contained within 12 weeks because trained health workers and treatment infrastructure were already in place.
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