Emerging infectious diseases can pose a serious threat to national health and security.

Experts we convened suggested several ways the federal government could better detect and monitor such threats. For example, they suggested unifying animal and public health efforts because emerging diseases often affect both. They also discussed improving leadership among many partners, and more.

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo is quoted in this article.

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo is quoted in this article.

NPR's A Martinez asks Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University why there have been more measles cases this year so far than in all of last year, and what can be done to stop the resurgence.

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Multiple conflicts ravaging the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are undermining efforts to rein in a worsening Ebola outbreak and risk fueling the spread of both instability and disease beyond the country's borders.

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Africa is significantly better prepared for a pandemic than it was five years ago, a major review of the continent’s health security has found.

The review, which tracked dozens of health metrics across the continent, found that local and international investments in Africa’s health sector since the pandemic have “paid off.”

Published by the Brown University Pandemic Centre and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US non-profit, the report is the third of its kind and provides an update on two previous reviews from 2019 and 2021.

The United States has now recorded more cases of measles in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000, a grim sign that the country may be headed toward a new era in which the disease regularly sickens thousands every year.

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A new Africa-specific health security index finds strong gains in laboratories and disease surveillance since 2021, but biosecurity, biosafety and systems for delivering vaccines and treatments continue to lag.

African countries have spent the past five years building laboratories, expanding disease surveillance and improving outbreak detection. Now, the continent’s first health security assessment cautions that the next stage of preparedness will depend on making those investments safer, better connected and more resilient.

A new Africa Health Security Index released Wednesday found the continent’s average preparedness score has risen nearly 30 percent in five years to 41.5 out of 100, but its biosecurity and biosafety scores remain critically low even as an Ebola outbreak spreads across the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

New Africa Health Security Index reveals how rising threats and health emergencies, including Central Africa’s current Ebola outbreak, could erode progress

Against the backdrop of an Ebola disease outbreak, the new Africa Health Security (AHS) Index, released today, reveals significant gaps in critical health infrastructure despite important progress in health security capacity in recent years.

The world’s capacity to control the disease has improved in the past decade, but only because of dedicated investment and coordination.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is now the third-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. It will likely pass the second largest, an outbreak in the same region of Congo from 2018 to 2020. Already, the current outbreak has grown past 2,000 cases and to 754 deaths; according to the World Health Organization, it is likely to reach more than 8,000 cases and 1,400 deaths by mid-September. The CDC’s worst-case scenario projects more than 20,000 cases by mid-August.

Washington, D.C., July 16, 2026 — The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), the Brown University Pandemic Center and Air Club released today Advancing Healthy Indoor Air: Five Leading Policy Models from Around the World, a new report highlighting a rapidly expanding wave of indoor air quality (IAQ) policy innovation across the globe. Drawing lessons from nearly 160 policies spanning 40 countries, the report identifies five leading policy models that governments are using to improve indoor air quality and offers practical guidance for policymakers seeking to strengthen public health, resilience and economic performance.

NATO Leaders are gathering in Ankara this week to discuss the security challenges facing the world. While they meet, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda are battling what has already become the third-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. The affected areas of the DRC face a profoundly unstable security situation, further complicating the response. This is more than just a humanitarian crisis - it is a stark reminder of the risks that fast-moving biological threats pose to regional stability and global security and resilience.

In May, an outbreak of the Ebola virus was officially declared in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Aid groups are warning that it could become the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history.

On this episode, Dan Richards spoke with two experts about why this outbreak is uniquely concerning, what the global health community needs to do to respond effectively, and how U.S. international aid policy under the Trump Administration has affected the trajectory of this public health crisis.

The United States knows how to defeat Ebola. A dozen years of bipartisan investment — spanning three administrations and billions of dollars — have built a formidable infrastructure of expertise, countermeasures, and rapid-response capability

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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Doctors treating Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the symptoms may be milder than in previous outbreaks of the disease

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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An outbreak of Ebola disease is sweeping through Central Africa and it has the World Health Organization very concerned it could spread to other parts of the world. Watch here to learn more and find out What’s Going On.

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The Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could grow to 20,000 cases or more, depending on how quickly infected people are isolated to slow the spread, according to a new analysis by U.S. health officials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a range of scenarios generated by computer models Friday, spanning from 10,000 cases to more than 20,000. If accurate, a worst-case scenario could approach the worst Ebola outbreak in history, the West Africa epidemic in 2014-2016 — which resulted in more than 28,000 reported cases and more than 11,000 deaths.

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As of Friday, there have been at least 63 deaths and 397 confirmed cases of Ebola in Central Africa, according to health officials.

Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, joined 12 News at 4 Friday to share more about the recent outbreaks of both Ebola and the hantavirus.

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Thousands of tourists are set to descend upon Southern New England for the World Cup amid an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan, a reality that has some Americans concerned.

But in a briefing from the Brown Pandemic Center, led by Craig Spencer, a Brown professor who treated Ebola patients in Africa in 2014, top scientists asserted the deadly virus should not be a major concern for the United States.

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The U.S. plan to respond to the Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak just experienced a serious setback.

On Tuesday, Kenya’s High Court extended its order to block the proposed U.S. quarantine center in Kenya for U.S. citizens exposed to Ebola in the unfolding outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

Healthcare officials in the US, including former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials, on June 1 warned Congress against adopting a proposed policy to treat Americans exposed to Ebola in Kenya or countries in the European Union.

As natural outbreaks, laboratory accidents and the deliberate misuse of biological agents converge into an increasingly complex threat environment, Africa’s ability to prevent, detect and respond will depend on a sustained investment in the people capable of doing so.

By the time Craig Spencer was checking his temperature twice a day, President Trump had already spent the summer railing against bringing home American aid workers who contracted ebola in west Africa.

“People that go to far away places to help out are great — but must suffer the consequences!” Trump wrote at height of the last outbreak 12 years ago. “Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!”

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By the time African health officials confirmed the world’s latest Ebola outbreak, the epidemic had already spilled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo into neighboring Uganda. Within two days, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public-health emergency of international concern. Less than two weeks later, the potential case count has risen past 1,000, including more than 230 deaths, and 10 other African countries have been designated at risk of being swept into the crisis.

When Craig Spencer contracted Ebola while working in Guinea during the West African outbreak in 2014, he was already back in the United States when he first developed symptoms. He credits the treatment he got at New York’s Bellevue Hospital for his survival.

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The Trump administration is building a quarantine and treatment center in Kenya for Americans affected by the Ebola outbreak, instead of bringing them home.

The White House on Wednesday confirmed that the US was setting up a facility in Kenya for Americans to quarantine after Ebola exposure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

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The deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Public health researcher and Ebola survivor Dr. Craig Spencer joins Meet the Press NOW to discuss the need for urgent international action for what could become the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever.
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A new drug candidate could help treat measles, croup and other related viral diseases that cause contagious and life-threatening respiratory infections, Georgia State University researchers say.

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In past outbreaks, Americans exposed to the virus were sent home to be treated in state-of-the-art facilities. The Trump administration has already flown some U.S. citizens to Europe for treatment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been left "decimated" by various policy changes over the last year, weakening its ability to respond to a growing Ebola outbreak, experts have told Newsweek.

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WJAR) — Less than three weeks from the first FIFA World Cup match, public health experts say they are on high alert for outbreaks of infectious diseases.

"When you are bringing potentially 5 to 7 million fans from over 100 different countries together, the chances that you bring new diseases that are not typically present in the U.S. into the U.S. does increase," Brown University associate professor of epidemiology Dr. William Goedel told NBC 10 in an interview.

When Georgia Lagoudas testified in front of the Rhode Island State legislature, lawmakers in the packed, poorly ventilated room were restless and unfocused.

The room had already exceeded near-toxic carbon dioxide levels set by the US federal occupational health agency. At 6,000 CO2 parts per million, breathing air can lead to fatigue, headaches, reduced cognitive function, and nausea.

Two deadly outbreaks that could threaten Americans are unfolding simultaneously—Ebola in one part of the world, hantavirus in another—with mortality rates of 25 to 50 percent and 38 percent, respectively, and no approved vaccines or treatments for either. For now, what are most alarming are not the outbreaks themselves but the slow and uncoordinated responses by the institutions that Americans rely on to keep them safe, including the U.S. government and the World Health Organization. If the world cannot properly handle known threats that it has contained before, then it is dangerously unprepared for the next novel one.

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Jeffery Taubenberger, an influenza researcher named last year as acting director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has “stepped down from his position,” Senator Tammy Baldwin (D–WI) revealed at a Senate hearing today on the budget for its parent institution, the National Institutes of Health (NIH).