Elon Musk brandished a chainsaw on stage. He did it with gusto. Then, at a cabinet meeting last February, he giggled. Slyly. He claimed he had “accidentally canceled” Ebola prevention efforts. A glitch, really, while he tore through the US Agency for International Development.
He looked cool at the time. “We restored the Ebola prevention immediately,” Musk said. “And there was no interruption.”
Disaster struck anyway. Profoundly so. That claim was never true.
On May 17 the World Health Organization panicked. Well. They declared a “public health emergency.” This happens only nine times. The ninth was this outbreak. Congo and Uganda. At least 220 dead. More than 900 suspect cases. Already the third largest outbreak in history.
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But those numbers lie. The death toll is far lower than reality. Only a trickle of tests processed daily. The virus? Ahead of us. Spreading fast. Ahmed Mahat, manager with International Medical Corps, knows this. He told the New York Times so.
Publicly known cases are rising exponentially. Faster than the 2014 West Africa nightmare. Faster than 2018. Hundreds already infected when they finally noticed.
When you stop looking
Why this speed? The virus helps. Bundibugyo strain. Rare. Harder to diagnose. No vaccine. None. Yet.
Also the place. Eastern Congo. Remote. War zone. Health systems ravaged by decades of guns and bullets.
Odds were bad. Then came the cuts.
US foreign aid got gutted. Last year. Musk’s assurances meant nothing. Programs to detect cases froze. Dispatch response? Frozen too. Stat confirmed it. Local health systems weakened. Stockpiles drained. The cuts contributed indirectly. Directly disastrous.
The US Department of Health and Human services disbursed $10 million last year. Down from $33 million. USAID sent $692 million. Down from $1.18 billion.
Surveillance died. Identification delayed. Tests missing. Nurses? Gone. Protective gear? Gone.
Jean Kaseya runs the Africa CDC. He sees the damage. “It’s so bad.” He repeats it. Wealthy countries retreated. Global health stage abandoned. The CDC in Africa fills some gaps. Impossible to fill all. He says no one knows the true magnitude.
No one can give you the magnitude of outbreak.
Bleeding out
The US tried course correction. Too late. Last week they pledged $23 million emergency funding. For Congo. Uganda. CDC involvement increased. A disaster response team deployed.
Some lost funding returned. Bilateral deals helped.
Doesn’t help the amputee. You cut a limb with a chainsaw. A “bureaucratic chainsaw” maybe. Band-aids don’t regrow tissue.
US withdrew from WHO. Policy destabilized systems. Experts left. Researchers gone.
Things will worsen. Virulence is high. Robert Redfield used to head the CDC. He predicted spread. To Tanzania. South Sudan. Vaccine development started. Fast. But rollout takes months. Best case scenario.
Workers play catch up. The virus has the head start.
Hours matter now. We are delayed by weeks. Nicholas Enrich used to top global health at USAID. He summarized the failure recently.
What happens when speed means nothing?
