By William Roper, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Robert Redfield, Rochelle Walensky, and Mandy CohenMay 26, 2026
The authors are former directors or acting directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda to be a public health emergency. This outbreak is deadly, with hundreds of cases across at least two countries, including, by report, one American who was working in the area.
At the same time, a cluster of hantavirus cases linked to a Dutch cruise ship in the South Atlantic has killed three and exposed hundreds more.
Outbreaks such as these are why the U.S. cannot let down our defenses against microbes — and why programs such as PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, matter so much.
