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Presented by Valent Health | Who's going to pay for the response, and could the pandemic treaty have prevented this?
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It’s all Ebola in today’s CheckUp, beginning with the race to catch up with the outbreak declared nearly two weeks ago in the conflict-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s no surprise to see African leaders stepping into the lead there.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization’s Africa office are coordinating the continental response, much as they did during the 2024 mpox outbreak. They have their work cut out for them. After potentially weeks of silent spread preceding the outbreak declaration, the virus has now resulted in more than 900 suspected cases and more than 220 suspected deaths, while also crossing from the DRC into Uganda. During a ministerial briefing earlier this week, Africa CDC Director-General Dr. Jean Kaseya showed an alarming map that had the DRC and Uganda shaded in red and every neighboring country colored in yellow, signaling there is a risk the virus could slip into those nations through porous borders.  “No one can give you the magnitude of this outbreak,” Kaseya tells my colleague Sara Jerving. “How many cases do we have? No one knows. No one can tell you when we can stop this outbreak.” Those efforts are made even more difficult because there are no approved vaccines or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola. That means there is no certainty that the vaccines that have been useful in containing past outbreaks of the more common Zaire species of Ebola will be useful in this situation. If officials did want to try deploying the existing vaccines, they would need guidance from WHO and would need to set up a clinical trial with explicit community involvement and consent, says Dr. Sania Nishtar, the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. She says some early-stage vaccine candidates might also be promising, though, for various supply and production reasons, they would also take months to get to trial. Read: ‘It’s so bad’ — inside the fast-spreading Ebola outbreak ICYMI: The Ebola species rapidly spreading has no vaccines. Here are the options |
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A message from Valent Health
 Why outdoor mosquito control must shape malaria’s next chapter The fight against malaria is evolving. Climate change, mosquito adaptation, and changing transmission patterns are exposing the limits of indoor-only interventions and reinforcing the need for integrated mosquito management approaches that address mosquitoes across their full life cycle and in both indoor and outdoor environments. Learn more in the onstage conversation with Silas Majambere, business manager for Africa, Europe, and the Middle East with Valent Health at Devex Impact House @ WHA79. |
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Pony up
African agencies are leading the response, but are continental governments also in a position to pay for it? It’s a pertinent question at a moment when donor governments are pushing their counterparts in the global south to take on more responsibility for financing their own health needs.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says yes. During the ministerial briefing earlier this week to get high-level support for the $319 million plan put together by Africa CDC and WHO, Ramaphosa revealed that African countries had committed 10% of the required financing. That includes $5 million from South Africa. “Africa is no longer waiting passively for others to act,” he said. The reality is, though, that the vast majority of the nearly $500 million raised for the response so far is still coming from traditional donors. That includes $15 million from the Gates Foundation, a pledge of $23 million from the United States — along with a commitment to fund up to 50 treatment clinics — and $60 million from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The United Kingdom has also pledged up to £21 million ($28.2 million). And while the U.K. has cut global health support, a spokesperson from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office told Devex contributor Paul Adepoju the country remains committed to tackling global health challenges “not only because it is the right thing to do,” but because it supports global stability and growth. What this all adds up to is a similar financial trajectory to the 2024 mpox outbreak, where African governments also contributed about 10% to the $1 billion response. But questions around financing will extend beyond this moment of crisis. African Union Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf told the ministerial briefing that there needs to be consistent investments in surveillance and emergency operations centers so that countries can contain a potential emergency before it reaches the scale of the current DRC outbreak. That’s exactly the point Lindsay Northover, a member of the U.K. House of Lords, made to Paul: “Putting in money afterwards, obviously it’s welcome. But surveillance of what’s happening is incredibly important, so that needs to be there and that needs to be funded.” But in this moment of shrinking donor commitments, who is going to put up that money? Youssouf said it’s time for the continent to look inward. “African problems require African leadership and African responsibility,” he said. Read: UK Ebola response sparks questions over aid cuts Related: Africa outbreaks expose ‘erosion of trust’ in health systems 
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Sponsored by Access Accelerated and the FAN
How ‘radical collaboration’ is closing the NCD financing gap
How can collaboration between governments, multilateral development banks, and the private sector help countries finance NCD and mental health solutions? Access Accelerated’s Herb Riband explains. |
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Act fast
Preventing these kinds of outbreaks is going to take more than money, though, as Esme Wheeler, a public health policy specialist, reminds us in an opinion piece for Devex. Ebola is just one of many zoonotic diseases that carry the risk of erupting into a pandemic — particularly as humans continue to create the conditions that allow these viruses to spill over.
That’s one reason to be disappointed by the ongoing delay of a pandemic treaty, Wheeler explains, since it would help reorient “global health governance away from reactive crisis management and toward addressing risk at the source.” In practice, that would look like broader efforts to identify where a spillover could possibly occur and take steps to mitigate it. Opinion: Why Ebola shows we must finish the pandemic treaty now |
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Your next job?
Senior Manager, Philanthropic Partnerships and Integrated Delivery
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Switzerland |
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A message from Valent Health
Thinking outside the box: Integrated mosquito management
The fight against malaria is evolving. Climate change, mosquito adaptation, and changing transmission patterns are exposing the limits of indoor-only interventions and reinforcing the need for integrated mosquito management approaches that address mosquitoes across their full life cycle and in both indoor and outdoor environments. Learn more in the onstage conversation with Silas Majambere, business manager for Africa, Europe, and the Middle East with Valent Health at Devex Impact House @ WHA79. |
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What we’re reading
If you’re still looking for more Ebola coverage, Jia Kangbai, who helped guide the response to Sierra Leone’s outbreak starting in 2013, has a good explainer in The Conversation laying out why he is concerned this situation will be hard to contain. And for Le Monde, Morgane Le Cam expands on one of those challenges: how responders navigate between respecting cultural traditions and taking the steps necessary to prevent further spread.
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We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s read, which was edited by Rumbi Chakamba, copy edited by Nicole Tablizo, and produced by Mariane Samson. For any news tips, please get in touch [email protected].
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