DOGE chickens come home to roost: World Health Organization declares global health emergency due to Ebola outbreak in Congo

 

Headline:   CBS News, 5/17/2026

Yan Zhuang reports:

The U.S. has been the single largest external player in Ebola outbreak response in the past, but experts worry the Trump administration's cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its withdrawal of the country from the WHO may impact such efforts. 

Spencer said the U.S. does not have the capacity right now to respond quickly to global outbreaks. He suggested to CBS News there may be a connection between the shutdown of USAID and the fact that the latest outbreak was not announced until Friday. 

"Before the second Trump administration, USAID would have been on the ground," Spencer said. "The CDC would have been on the ground at a moment's notice, maybe even before a moment's notice, of a new outbreak of Ebola because we were in a bunch of countries. We created relationships beforehand."  [emphasis added]

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