Experts say USAID closure made virus harder to contain

The deadly Ebola virus outbreak in Central Africa has been worsened by cuts in U.S. and Western foreign support, experts say, a year after Washington cut international aid operations.

In May, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda declared epidemics after laboratory tests detected the spread of the Bundibugyo virus, which causes a type of Ebola disease. Transmitted through contact with infected body fluids, wild animals, and contaminated objects or meat, Ebola is a rare but serious disease with a mortality rate of approximately 50%.

The current outbreak is the 17th outbreak experienced by the Democratic Republic of Congo. With more than 1,400 cases confirmed to date, this is the third largest outbreak on record, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are currently no known cases reported in the United States, but one case has been confirmed in France. The latest data from the CDC shows there have been 440 confirmed deaths due to the virus.

Near the beginning of the outbreak, the International Rescue Committee, a global non-governmental organization focused on humanitarian aid, relief and development, warned that the current outbreak could become the deadliest epidemic on record without urgent intervention.

“Warning signs are flashing red,” Bob Kitchen, the IRC’s deputy chief of emergencies, said in a statement, before noting that the Democratic Republic of Congo is facing the current outbreak “more fragile and less prepared” than the 2018-2020 outbreak that killed more than 2,000 people.

“Increasing conflict and cuts to global aid funding have eliminated defense at exactly the wrong time,” Kitchen said. “Risks are increasing and resources are decreasing; this is the brutal arithmetic facing global aid today.”

US Agency for International Development officially closed Last July, most of its programs were eliminated and a small portion was turned over to the U.S. State Department. The movement attracted attention criticism from former presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush, as well as billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.

USAID’s demise comes as part of cuts enacted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an interim agency that President Donald Trump created shortly after returning to the White House. Trillionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk initially inspected DOGE’s operations and recent defended Decisions regarding discontinuation of USAID tracking allegations He said it caused the death of children.

DOGE was officially closed on July 4, 2026.

But recent cuts to foreign aid programs are not unique to the United States. Last year, the charity Oxfam said G7 countries, which collectively account for about 75 percent of all official development aid, were ready to cut aid spending by 28 percent in 2026 from 2024 levels.

French foreign aid will have fallen by nearly a third since 2023, according to recently published analysis by researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. Germany’s will fall by more than 36%, while the UK’s is down 45% from recent peak levels.

Virologist Angela Rasmussen is chief scientific officer of the activist group Save America Movement, a nonpartisan organization whose goal is to defend “American values,” including the constitution, public health, the economy, and the United States’ position as a global leader.

Foreign aid cuts have “clearly worsened” the Ebola crisis in Central Africa, he said in an email to CNBC. He explained that cuts to critical infrastructures previously funded by USAID led to increased violence and reduced capacity in the region where the epidemic occurred.

In early 2025, conflict broke out between Congolese authorities and groups led by the rebel paramilitary group M23. This incident resulted in the capture of Goma, a key city on the Rwandan border, which further worsened political violence across the country. Groups affiliated with the Islamic State have also carried out attacks in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; Missile attacks and clashes between M23, Rwandan troops, Congolese forces and other militia groups are common in the region. based on To the Council on Foreign Relations.

CfR says the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the largest and deadliest humanitarian crises in the world, with 1 million Congolese seeking refuge abroad and 21 million Congolese still in need of urgent assistance, including medical aid and supplies, in the country.

“The ongoing civil war and lack of well-developed transportation networks have resulted in restricted mobility, and these funding cuts have severely reduced trust in humanitarian and medical aid workers, making it difficult and in some cases dangerous to conduct contact tracing or treat Ebola patients,” Rasmussen told CNBC.

“Shipments are not arriving, and existing USAID-funded medical supplies (basic supplies such as gloves, PPE, and body bags) are not reaching the hardest-hit areas of Ituri province.”

Rasmussen added that the loss of USAID-funded cold chain infrastructure meant that swab samples were spoiled during transportation to biomedical testing facilities, contributing to delays in detecting the virus.

“Confirmation of CASEs is still severely delayed because the loss of USAID funds has left the health system without supplies, equipment, facilities and personnel to operate them,” he said.

Access TeleCare infectious disease specialist and Chief of Infectious Diseases Jade Le also told CNBC that foreign aid cuts have “absolutely” made it harder to contain the Ebola outbreak. USAID has traditionally been heavily involved in building health infrastructure in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said, from training health workers to recognize the signs and symptoms of diseases like Ebola to providing testing kits and personal protective equipment and helping transport samples to laboratories equipped to test and identify the Ebola virus.

“With the disbandment of USAID, funding cuts and withdrawal from WHO, workforce reductions at the CDC, and reductions in health assistance to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Trump administration has certainly contributed to the delay in detection and lack of control of this current outbreak,” he said in an email.

CNBC contacted the US government for comment on the impact of foreign aid cuts.

“The United States was responding early to such outbreaks, where Epidemic Intelligence Service officers were dispatched to investigate outbreaks before they spread rapidly, quickly identify the cause, appropriately isolate patients, and perform contact tracing to ensure control of outbreaks,” Le said. he said.

“This time, U.S. public health and medical experts were unfortunately mobilized much later than in previous outbreaks, and U.S. funding to help control this epidemic will be less effective than it would be if USAID continued programming.”