This is the sixth Ebola outbreak within seven years in Congo, making it the highest concentration of outbreaks since the virus was first discovered in 1976.<\/p>\n
A team of first responders arrived Sunday in the Bulape health zone, where the outbreak has struck, with medical supplies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/congo-ebola-poster-file.jpg#.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Congolese volunteer Ferdinand Tangenyi displays a flip book he uses to inform people about the Ebola virus, in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, in an Aug. 3, 2019 file photo.<\/p>\n
Baz Ratner\/REUTERS<\/p>\n
In the country’s capital Kinshasa, health workers and first responders from the Ministry of Health, the WHO and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were given vaccinations ahead of deployments to the affected region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Congo currently has a stockpile of 2,000 vaccine doses and has ordered more to arrive in the coming days, according to the WHO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Patrick Otim, the WHO’s emergency response coordinator for the area, told reporters during a Sept. 4 briefing that the United Nations agency was already working to trace close contacts with known cases, increase field lab testing capacity and community response to ensure early reporting. \u00a0<\/p>\n He acknowledged that the DRC had requested additional vaccines and stressed that, as “early supportive care is key to lifesaving,” the WHO was working to deliver more medical supplies, including protective clothing and other items “necessary to manage the outbreak.”<\/p>\n The last two outbreaks, in 2022, were contained quickly, said Otim, but he noted that they were addressed before the Trump administration severely cut funding for international health programs, including the WHO.<\/p>\n A photo taken on March 21, 2021, shows a medical worker vaccinating a local resident against the Ebola virus in North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n Alain Uaykani\/Xinhua\/Getty<\/p>\n Those cuts have fueled concern in Africa and elsewhere<\/a> about the ability of individual nations and global agencies to respond to and quickly contain outbreaks of diseases including Ebola \u2014 and to keep such deadly viruses from reaching U.S. shores.<\/p>\n “The recent cuts will definitely have an impact,” Otim said at the briefing. “As a global community, we need to work together to stop this virus, as diseases do not respect borders.”<\/p>\n “What we know (from past outbreaks) is you need to get supplies and resources as soon as possible to stop transmission,” Otim added.<\/p>\n President Trump announced in January<\/a> that the U.S. \u2014 long a key stakeholder and largest donor to the agency \u2014 would be pulling out of the WHO, with the White House citing “the organization’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states.”<\/p>\n The Trump administration, at the time, also accused the WHO of demanding “unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.”<\/p>\n The WHO warned almost immediately that, given the uncertainty over future U.S. funding, it was cutting back spending<\/a> in ways that could impact its operations.<\/p>\n![\"DRC-EBOLA-CASE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/congo-ebola-1240197267.jpg#.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n