Consequences of the United States has quickly cut foreign aid around the world, including in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an unidentified disease with Ebola-like symptoms has destroyed various towns. This disease killed more than 60 people and became more than a thousand ill, and it occurs at the same time as an Ebola outbreak in neighboring Uganda, as well as the increasing political violence within the DRC.

Experts believe that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of Elon Musk impeded the response to this unidentified disease, which delayed further investigations and restrictions of additional disease outbreaks.

“Medical staff next to the Uganda – DRC border has ended. Soldiers are everywhere. The laboratory built to deal with zoonotic diseases with US financing is empty, ”says Tim Allen, a London professor of economics and an expert on the tropical disease control on the ground at the border of Uganda and the DRC.

Nidhi Bouri, the former Deputy Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID during the Joe Biden Administration that previously led sickness and response efforts, says the reliefs created a void in the site reaction. “We don’t have the presence in the country,” she says. USAID has previously provided important infrastructure and support for the oversight and prevention of disease; It worked with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on supplemental tasks, Bouri says. “Once a pathogen has been identified, USAID, historically, quick ways to reduce further distribution.” By making the USAID suddenly disappear, the Donald Trump administration has created a vacuum that other agencies will struggle to fill completely.

The US State Department did not respond to requests for comment. “CDC is carefully monitoring the situation and deals with the ADMA officials about what support the agency can provide,” said Melissa Dibble, spokesman for Centers for Disease Control.

Although the disease in the DRC is still officially unidentified, there are some conflicting theories that emerge on its cause. The World Health Organization now suspects that the unidentified disease can in fact be a mass poisoning incident rather than a virus, with contaminated water as a likely source. Or, if it’s a virus, maybe it’s not new at all; Last year in the DRC it was found that an outbreak of an unknown disease of breathing infections combined with malaria. Local health officials, including experts at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, assume that this may be the case again.

In 2024, the US Congress allocated $ 795 million for malaria control, most of which was intended to serve sub-Saharan Africa, which weakens most of the global malaria infections. Nevertheless, however, the rapid disagreement of the vast majority of this help sent. “The stop of US programs that occur and treated malaria will lead to outbreaks and an exponential increase in deaths,” Martin Edlund, CEO of nonprofit malaria no More, said in a statement. “New modeling shows that a year of disruptions would lead to nearly 15 million additional cases of malaria and 107,000 extra deaths.”