Researchers who would be fighting the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo are sitting idle after President Trump eliminated their funding. The CREID centers were developing diagnostic tests specifically for the Bundibugyo virus strain causing this outbreak, but public health agencies are still using tests designed for the Zaire strain that missed early infections.

The funding cuts targeted EcoHealth Alliance, one of CREID's original centers, due to its connections to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and COVID-19 lab-leak theories promoted by Trump and Republican lawmakers. The Department of Health and Human Services permanently barred EcoHealth Alliance from receiving taxpayer dollars in January 2025, effectively dissolving the network that previously responded to Ebola outbreaks across Africa.

M. Kariuki Njenga, a virologist at Washington State University who led the CREID center covering Eastern and Central Africa, confirms the network had active studies in the region and would have been deployed. During the 2022 Uganda outbreak, rapid detection and contact tracing helped contain the virus in just four months, with 164 infections and 55 deaths.

The current outbreak has already claimed at least 1,000 suspected cases and 238 deaths in the DRC, with seven confirmed cases in Uganda. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the World Health Organization warns that the epidemic is outpacing response efforts, highlighting how political decisions made thousands of miles away are directly impacting lives on the ground.