By G. Dunkel
May 29, 2026

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has an estimated $24 trillion of untapped mineral wealth, perhaps the highest total in the world. It has 116 million people, is the fourth largest African country by population, and is  the second largest country in Africa by size. (worldometers.info)

Much of the country’s wealth is in the eastern DRC, which has been the scene of decades-long conflict to control it.

The eastern DRC is densely populated. Bunia, a major city in the mineral-rich region, has almost a million inhabitants, and is at the center of the current Ebola outbreak.

Given the disruption caused by the armed conflict between the government and M23, an armed movement which began as Tutsi militia fleeing the civil war in Rwanda, it has been hard to monitor and control the outbreak of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus.

Ebola virus is a zoonotic pathogen, meaning it naturally circulates in animals before spilling over into humans. The primary reservoir is believed to be fruit bats. Bundibugyo appears to be a new spillover, not a mutation of previous Ebola outbreaks.

Two Ebola control centers were burned at the end of April. These attacks exposed the anger over the displacement of a huge number of people and the failure of local governments to provide healthcare and other services to vulnerable communities.

The last major Ebola outbreak in the DRC was from the Zaire Ebola virus, which is reasonably well understood and has  a fatality rate of 90% but for which screening, a vaccine and monoclonal antibody therapies exist. The monitoring that the DRC public health system carries out was set to detect the presence of Zaire Ebola, not any other kind.

Until early 2025 the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had provided critical assistance in controlling Ebola in Africa. However, due to the Musk-DOGE-Trump devastatingly reckless cuts in USAID funding, financial aid allocated for Ebola response has plummeted by roughly 99% compared to the resources deployed during the historic 2014 and 2018–2020 Ebola outbreaks. This means facilities for detecting types of Ebola other than Zaire lack resources, which let the Bundibugyo Ebola virus spread unimpeded.

Until there is a specific treatment for this type of Ebola, the standard public health measures of isolation and symptom relief help the individual and the community.

The U.S. no longer controls Ebola outbreaks

While Ebola is nowhere near as contagious as COVID-19 — Ebola is spread by direct contact with an infected person or their bodily fluids and is not airborne like COVID-19 — it is still dangerous and just a plane trip away from becoming a major problem in an urban center. Although the eastern area of the DRC is an area with few airports or roads, the virus is able to spread rapidly.

The U.S. has made a  $23 million pledge for support for DRC and Ugandan government emergency health initiatives.  The “restructuring” of USAID severed deep, multi-decade, institutional relationships with local health ministries. The current minimal pledge represents only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to control Ebola, aid that reached $361 million to control the outbreak in 2018-2020. (kff.org/global-health-policy/is-the-u-s-stepping-up-in-the-fight-against-ebola/)

The African CDC no longer has a relationship with the U.S. CDC, because the U.S. has decided that it wants bilateral relationships, not multilateral ones. Like any business relationship, a bilateral health relationship would let the U.S. “extort” favorable treatment in minerals or other lucrative sectors.

An example of this is Zambia, where the U.S. is considering withdrawing funding for life-saving malaria, tuberculosis and HIV programs to pressure the Zambian government to sign the Zambia–U.S. Health Deal, which would give the U.S. preferential access to Zambia’s mineral resources.

Imperialism has exploited the people and resources of Africa for centuries. Africa is owed reparations. The U.S. and other wealthy imperialist countries should fund Ebola care, prevention and research with no strings attached.