Convening under the shadow of the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a real-time reminder of what’s at stake. The message from the outset was sobering. Without proper plans for prevention, countries continue a cycle of panic, scrambling for resources only after a crisis hits.

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WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, highlighted the disastrous impact that the Trump Administration’s dismantling of USAID programs has had on the fight against Ebola.

Not long after Dr. Craig Spencer called a hotline from his New York City apartment to report that he had Ebola symptoms, an ambulance arrived outside his building full of health workers wearing full biohazard suits.

Spencer, 33 at the time, lived on the fifth floor and was recently back from treating Ebola patients in the West African nation of Guinea. For some reason, he wasn’t able to buzz in the responders, but his situation was considered so urgent that the team immediately removed the building's front door and came upstairs.

Infectious disease experts say measles — not Ebola or hantavirus — is the biggest infectious threat to the mega-events that will be held in the Unites States this summer.

Ahead of the World Cup and America's 250th anniversary celebrations, experts warned that the highly contagious measles virus could spread during massive international gatherings in jam-packed stadiums, crowded transit hubs and fan fests.

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In an extraordinary public display of administration infighting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate foreign relations committee on June 2 that he was wresting back control of U.S. contributions to an international vaccine consortium — Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance — from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and his anti-vaxxer entourage. It was time, Rubio announced brusquely, to “re-engage” with Gavi, which was established in 2000 and takes the lead in vaccinating roughly 60 percent of the world’s children.

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The Trump administration has imposed some very tough measures in response to the hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks, despite the president's past history of criticizing COVID-19 restrictions during the pandemic.

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Jennifer Nuzzo and Craig Spencer are both quoted in this article:

WASHINGTON (AP) — While millions of soccer fans cheer or groan over World Cup matches spanning North America, health officials will be on high alert for germs.

A heat wave may be the most obvious health threat. But infectious diseases can spread in a crowd, and experts are set to scrutinize wastewater, hospital visits, even social media for any signs that an outbreak might be brewing.

Measles, one of the most contagious diseases, is among the top concerns, sparking a warning this week from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO. With a nearly six-week stretch of packed stadiums, bars and tourist sites in 16 cities, officials are on the lookout for a long list of infections, from the stomach bug norovirus to mosquito-borne dengue fever.

In Kenya today, protests erupted for a second time in as many weeks. Residents are upset about a quarantine facility that the U.S. is setting up in the town of Nanyuki in the central part of the country about 120 miles from the capital, Nairobi.

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The 2026 FIFA World Cup is the largest mass gathering event in U.S. history. More than five million tickets have been sold across three countries and 16 cities over 39 days, dwarfing the 3.4 million total attendance at the 2022 World Cup. President Trump championed the hosting bid, created a White House task force for the World Cup that he chairs and accepted FIFA’s inaugural “Peace Prize” at the draw in December. Yet the federal government allocated $625 million for World Cup law enforcement and security, and zero for public health.

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With millions of soccer fans and tourists set to travel to 11 U.S. cities hosting the World Cup in the coming weeks, public health officials are wary of potential risks from infectious diseases, such as the Ebola outbreak racing through Central Africa.

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The Ebola outbreak that's raging in Africa could rival the outbreak that hit West Africa a decade ago, resulting in upwards of 20,000 cases and 4,000 deaths within the next three months alone.

These projections appear in new analyses from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which modeled just how widespread the current outbreak could get.
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