\n<\/p>\n
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the World Health Organization (WHO) was \u201ca little late\u201d in identifying the deadly Ebola outbreak in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Rubio told reporters: \u201cThe lead is obviously going to be CDC (the Centers for Disease Control) and the World Health Organization, which was a little late to identify this thing unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n
His comments follow Donald Trump\u2019s decision to withdraw the US from the WHO, a move which experts described as \u201csowing the seeds of the next pandemic\u201d. Trump made the move in one of his first acts on returning to office last year. The US\u2019s departure also led to the loss of nearly a quarter of the WHO\u2019s workforce \u2013 about 2,000 jobs \u2013 from a total staff of about 9,400.<\/p>\n
Rubio said that the US, which has committed about $13m in assistance after sweeping aid cuts last year, was hoping to open about 50 clinics to treat Ebola in the DRC.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little tough to get to because it\u2019s in a rural area \u2026 and [a] hard-to-get-to place in a war-torn country, unfortunately,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to lean into that pretty heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WHO said earlier on Tuesday that it was concerned about the \u201cscale and speed\u201d of the Ebola outbreak that has killed an estimated 131 people in the DRC.<\/p>\n
Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, rejected Rubio\u2019s criticism of the WHO.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlaming the WHO is misplaced, because they are operating with limited resources in a difficult setting with many security challenges. But it\u2019s also cold comfort for all the people who have gotten Ebola and died. And this should concern Americans as well. It\u2019s highly worrisome given that public health resources in the US have been slashed and even a couple of cases in the US would be challenging with our current workforce,\u201d Gronvall said.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cIt is a strategic mistake \u2013 and a national security vulnerability \u2013 that we are worse off now to handle infectious disease threats than at the start of Covid-19. Hantavirus [and] Ebola are terrible, serious diseases but they are not as transmissible as some other infectious disease threats we could face. Instead of dismantling everything, we need to invest in the vaccines, diagnostic testing, and public health and hospital responses we would need to protect Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the WHO announced that the Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda was a \u201cpublic health emergency of international concern\u201d, saying: \u201cNeighboring countries sharing land borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo are considered at high risk for further spread due to population mobility, trade and travel linkages, and ongoing epidemiological uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe event requires international coordination and cooperation to understand the extent of the outbreak, to coordinate surveillance, prevention and response efforts, to scale up and strengthen operations and ensure ability to implement control measures,\u201d the WHO added.<\/p>\n
The organization also noted that countries not bordering the DRC and Uganda should avoid closing borders or restricting travel and trade during disease outbreaks, arguing that such measures are driven more by fear than science. Restrictions can force people and goods through unmonitored crossings, potentially increasing the spread of disease, they said.<\/p>\n
WHO authorities also cautioned that travel bans can damage local economies and disrupt emergency response efforts.<\/p>\n
The Guardian has reached out to the WHO for comment.<\/p>\n
The WHO\u2019s warnings come as US health agencies continue to face sweeping layoffs during Trump\u2019s second term. Earlier this week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced plans to eliminate dozens of positions across agencies including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, among others.<\/p>\n
The cuts follow health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr\u2019s announcement last year that he intended to reduce the department\u2019s 82,000-person workforce by 10,000 jobs.<\/p>\n
The latest layoffs also arrive amid mounting concerns over the US\u2019s preparedness for the next pandemic.<\/p>\n
While experts say the recent hantavirus outbreak is unlikely to spark a global health crisis, it has underscored the erosion of public health infrastructure in the US. Public health experts have also warned that deep political divisions and rampant misinformation could undermine Americans\u2019 willingness to follow future health guidance.<\/p>\n
Echoing Gronvall, Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiology professor and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown School of Public Health, said: \u201cThe CDC first learned of the outbreak when it was publicly confirmed, despite the fact that there\u2019d been rumors of an outbreak for weeks. This represents a notable change for the US government, which has historically played a key role in responding to rumored outbreaks in places like DRC and, if the rumors are confirmed to be true, helping to stop the outbreak.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like the US government is on the sidelines this time,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Melody Schreiber contributed reporting<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the World Health Organization (WHO) was \u201ca little late\u201d in identifying the deadly Ebola outbreak in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. On Tuesday, Rubio told reporters: \u201cThe lead is obviously going to be CDC (the Centers for Disease Control) and the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[3771,2965,562,24543,37,16369,177,2485,20533,17776,5564],"class_list":{"0":"post-49567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-continues","9":"tag-criticizes","10":"tag-cuts","11":"tag-ebola","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-marco","14":"tag-public","15":"tag-response","16":"tag-rubio","17":"tag-sweeping","18":"tag-whos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}