The 2026 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is a reminder that infectious disease threats do not stay neatly inside national borders. The CDC says it is responding to an Ebola outbreak in remote areas of the DRC and Uganda, with no confirmed US cases from this outbreak and a low overall risk to the American public and travelers as of June 8, 2026. (CDC)
2025 Ebola Outbreak Top 5 Risks of US Withdrawal from WHO. AI image created by Norm Dempsey
That low domestic risk is good news; but it should not be mistaken for proof that the United States can afford to weaken its disease-surveillance networks, special-pathogen treatment capacity, global health partnerships, or research infrastructure. The lesson of COVID-19 was about what makes outbreaks more dangerous and more expensive. Delay, distrust, weak surveillance, and fragmented response capacity are force multipliers in the wrong direction.
Our book, The Fed and the Flu, frames pandemics as economic shocks, not just medical events: Pandemics affect labor supply, supply chains, inflation, financial transactions, interest rates, disability, productivity, and public trust. That framing aligns with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s pandemic research by Òscar Jordà, Sanjay R. Singh, and Alan M. Taylor, which found that major pandemics can produce macroeconomic effects that persist for decades. (The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks)
The 2026 Ebola Outbreak: A Serious Threat Despite Low Public Risk in the US
WHO and Africa CDC have described the 2026 Ebola outbreak as a serious and fast-moving event. Reuters reported that WHO announced a $518 million six-month joint plan to support DRC and Uganda and help neighboring countries prepare for possible cases through measures such as enhanced border screening. (Reuters) The outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, and Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya described it as the most serious Bundibugyo outbreak compared with previous Bundibugyo events. Reuters also reported that commonly used Ebola tests initially failed to detect the strain, contributing to testing challenges and delays. (Reuters) That matters because Ebola preparedness depends on speed — rapid detection, lab confirmation, contact tracing, trained clinical teams, safe transport, community trust, and isolation capacity. CDC’s public health guidance for Ebola emphasizes situational awareness, event-based surveillance, strong partnerships, workforce readiness, lab response planning, PPE, and coordination with NETEC and the National Special Pathogen System. (CDC)
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s The Uptake newsletter emphasized on May 20 that the outbreak’s delayed detection is itself a warning sign. It cited Amesh Adalja’s assessment that containment will be “all the more challenging” because the outbreak appears to have had “so much time to spread,” adding that “we don’t really know exactly what’s going on, on the ground… [or] all the chains of transmission.” That uncertainty is precisely why surveillance capacity, local trust, lab access, and international coordination matter before an outbreak becomes visible to the world.
The same Johns Hopkins update also drew a sharp contrast between the United States’ technical preparedness and its weakened public-health workforce. Adalja noted that the US has roughly 13 Ebola treatment centers that “can handle the highest level of biocontainment,” adding, “We are prepared for this” because of lessons learned from the 2013–2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak. But Gigi Gronvall warned that sweeping cuts to US public-health infrastructure have left the country “worse off now to handle infectious disease threats than at the start of COVID-19,” and that “even a couple of cases [of Ebola] in the US would be challenging with our current workforce.” That tension should be central to the policy debate: Physical biocontainment capacity matters; but so do trained people, surveillance networks, and the institutional muscle needed to use that capacity under pressure.
Reuters reports on June 12, 2026 “The U.N. refugee agency confirmed the first Ebola-related deaths in a displacement camp in eastern Congo, as aid workers warned of a high risk the disease could spread rapidly in overcrowded sites.
“Aid workers describe cramped conditions at the camps, where sometimes hundreds of people sharing a toilet and open defecation is common.
“As of Friday, Congo had reported 676 confirmed cases and 136 deaths in an outbreak that has also spread to neighbouring Uganda, which has reported 19 cases.” (Reuters)
The Kenya quarantine facility controversy
Reuters reported on May 28, 2026, that Kenya had given written approval for the US to open a quarantine facility in Kenya for Americans exposed to the Ebola outbreak centered in the DRC. The facility was reportedly planned for land at an air force base in Laikipia, central Kenya, and would be staffed by members of the US Public Health Service. (Reuters) The plan immediately raised policy, ethical, and practical questions. Kenya reportedly pushed for the facility to be open to all nationalities, not only US citizens, while the Kenyan health ministry said it was in discussions with the US and other partners on Ebola response but did not specifically mention the quarantine facility. (Reuters) The controversy is sharpened by the fact that the United States already has federally supported domestic treatment infrastructure for high-consequence pathogens. Reuters reported that most of the 13 US treatment centers in the government-funded National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center network were ready to handle patients, including Ebola patients if needed. (Reuters)
The 13 US centers prepared for Ebola and other special pathogens
The National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center says it works closely with the 13 US Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers to advance special-pathogen readiness. (NETEC) Becker’s Hospital Review reported that these centers are federally designated Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers equipped and trained to treat patients with Ebola and other high-consequence pathogens. (Becker’s Hospital Review)
The 13 centers (NETEC) are as follows:
- Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
- NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, New York City
- Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
- MedStar Washington Hospital Center / Children’s National, Washington, D.C.
- Emory University Hospital / Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill / UNC Hospitals, Chapel Hill
- Corewell Health, Grand Rapids, Michigan
- University of Minnesota Medical Center, Minneapolis
- University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
- University of Nebraska Medical Center / Nebraska Medicine, Omaha
- Denver Health & Hospital Authority, Denver
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles
- Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children’s Hospital, Spokane
These are not ordinary receiving hospitals. Becker’s reports that RESPTCs maintain dedicated biocontainment units, specialized negative-pressure isolation rooms, trained staff, special-pathogen drills, and waste-management systems designed for dangerous infectious materials. (Becker’s Hospital Review) Reuters reported that the facilities are required to care for at least two patients exposed to a contagious viral hemorrhagic fever such as Ebola, train personnel quarterly, and keep lab testing capability and PPE available. (Reuters)
Their preparedness and expertise is why public-health experts have questioned the logic of building a Kenya quarantine facility for exposed Americans while US special-pathogen centers remain available. Reuters reported that some experts argued medical repatriation to fully staffed and prepared US facilities may pose fewer risks than relying on a new overseas facility. (Reuters)
Surveillance, labs, and workforce capacity are the real front line
The United States’ strongest protection against Ebola is to avoid panic at the border and employ its early warning, global surveillance, expert staffing, rapid diagnostics, trained clinicians, trust with partner countries, and the ability to treat exposed or infected Americans safely. For these reasons, recent reductions and disruptions deserve close scrutiny. Reuters reported that the Trump administration began mass layoffs of 10,000 staffers at US health agencies in April 2025. (Reuters) They later reported that CDC restored about 450 laid-off employees, including staff whose work involved global disease surveillance, after public-health concerns and backlash. (Reuters)
If that wasn’t enough, the Washington Post reported in February 2025 that Elon Musk and DOGE had “accidentally canceled” USAID Ebola prevention efforts and later restored them, while current and former USAID officials said Ebola prevention efforts remained largely halted, with teams and contractors dismantled and disease-response capacity reduced. (Washington Post) There is also a verified lab-capacity concern, but it should be stated carefully. WIRED reported that NIH’s Integrated Research Facility in Frederick, Maryland, which studies Ebola and other high-consequence infectious diseases, was ordered to stop experimental research activities in April 2025. NIH confirmed the action as a “research pause” or “safety stand-down” after personnel issues involving contract staff allegedly compromised safety culture. (WIRED) That is not the same as a confirmed permanent DOGE-style “termination” of the Ebola lab, but it does represent a disruption to US high-containment infectious-disease research.
Opinion: Isolationism is increasing avoidable risk
In our view, politically driven US isolationism is leaving Americans with an unnecessary and increased level of exposure to pathogens, whether Ebola or another new or resurgent microorganism. A country cannot protect itself from global infectious-disease threats by weakening the very systems that detect, study, and contain them. The United States can criticize WHO, demand reform, and insist on better accountability without dismantling its own disease-surveillance capacity, disrupting Ebola-related research, reducing global health staffing, or outsourcing quarantine responsibilities to countries already under strain.
These issues are where The Fed and the Flu is useful: The book reminds readers that pandemics are not abstract public-health events. They are economic shocks with long tails. They affect labor, disability, market confidence, supply chains, inflation, and governance. The Fed’s pandemic research reaches a similar conclusion from a different angle: Pandemics can leave medium- and long-term economic scars. (The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks) The lesson is simple: Preparedness is cheaper than improvisation. Surveillance is cheaper than outbreak spread. Skilled personnel are cheaper than institutional amnesia. And cooperation is cheaper than pretending pathogens care about politics.
We’re fast approaching our nation’s 250th anniversary. Those patriot founders were fond of saying, “Keep your powder dry,” and we often reuse the phrase today as a catchall for the importance of readiness. That said, with our national debt trending north of its current 39.2 trillion and with reduced public health capacity, can our nation afford to gamble that we’ll have enough “dry powder” and be able to offer more than an insufficient response to a future emergency, with enormous costs to follow? If you have a different take on things, please share your thoughts.
Five key takeaways with sources
- The current US public risk from the 2026 Ebola outbreak remains low, but keeping it low depends on active surveillance and response systems. CDC says that there are no confirmed US cases from this outbreak and that the risk to the American public and travelers remains low. (CDC)
- The US already has domestic special-pathogen treatment capacity. NETEC works with 13 Regional Emerging Special Pathogen Treatment Centers, and Reuters reported that most were ready to handle Ebola patients if needed. (NETEC)
- The Kenya quarantine facility plan is real but controversial. Reuters reported that Kenya approved US access to land at an air force base in Laikipia for a quarantine facility to care for Americans exposed to Ebola. (Reuters)
- Recent cuts and disruptions raise legitimate preparedness concerns. Reuters reported mass health-agency layoffs and partial CDC reinstatements involving staff whose work included global disease surveillance (Reuters); the Washington Post reported disputes over whether DOGE-restored Ebola prevention efforts were actually restored (Washington Post).
- Pandemics are economic shocks, not just health events. The Fed and the Flu argues that pandemics affect labor, supply chains, inflation, financial transactions, disability, and governance, while FRBSF research found that major pandemics can have macroeconomic effects lasting decades. (The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks)
Further information
“Ebola Emergency Response: Strengthening Global Health Security” | CDC Foundation’s One-Page Ebola Response Summary,
https://kotokreport.com/cdcf-ebola-er-2026-one-pager/
“What we know about the current Ebola outbreak” | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
https://hub.jhu.edu/2026/05/26/ebola-outbreak-central-africa/
The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks by David R. Kotok, Michael R. Englund, Tristan J. Erwin, and Elizabeth J. Sweet,
https://www.thefedandtheflu.com/ or https://www.amazon.com/Fed-Flu-Parsing-Pandemic-Economic-ebook/dp/B0DCK1ZHJT/
“How Funding Cuts Left the World Vulnerable to Ebola” | Bw Reads & Bloomberg Businessweek,
Read: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-06-04/ebola-crisis-tests-global-health-system-weakened-by-funding-cuts
Listen: https://omny.fm/shows/listen-to-the-story/how-funding-cuts-left-the-world-vulnerable-to-ebola
“The search for Ebola’s patient zero in Congo” | Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/idRW689708062026RP1/
The 7‑1‑7 target promotes early and effective action to contain infectious disease outbreaks | The 7-1-7 Alliance,
https://717alliance.org/
“Ebola outbreak spreads to crowded displacement camp in Congo” | Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/ebola-outbreak-spreads-crowded-displacement-camp-congo-2026-06-12/
Watch: “The High Price of ‘America First’ Aid Deals” | Bloomberg,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-05-29/the-high-price-of-america-first-aid-deals-video
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