28 JULY-AUGUST 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL to our health care system just a few years earlier and drawing on the lessons learned during the West Africa response, we rapidly mobilized to help contain the new Ebola outbreak. In partnership with the Congolese government, USAID trained community health workers to recognize and handle symptoms of the disease, while building trust with communities. USAID and CDC worked together to improve lab testing, surveillance, and reporting, and distributed a new Ebola vaccine. CDC brought its expertise in epidemiology to support and train the DRC’s Ministry of Health, while the National Institutes of Health (NIH) supported clinical trials and the State Department led diplomatic efforts to navigate security challenges. In June 2020, as COVID-19 spread, the Ebola outbreak, the largest in DRC’s history, finally ended. The outbreak resulted in significant human capital loss (nearly 2,300 people died), as well as disruptions to the health care system, trade, and commerce in the DRC. Though still significant, the overall costs were not at the scale of the West Africa outbreak. No cases came to the U.S. Leadership via Partnership The U.S. government’s investments to contain Ebola and strengthen the DRC health system’s ability to handle health threats paid lasting dividends. Just two years later, when Ebola again hit eastern DRC, the virus was detected in 48 hours. Instead of thousands of deaths, there were five. And just like in 2018, no cases came to the U.S. The story of Ebola outbreaks is one that demonstrates the promise of science, medicine, and public health. It’s also a story The author (front center) with USAID colleagues Christine Jost (left) and Arlette Kamariza (right) visit a World Health Organization mpox testing site supported by USAID in Bujumbura. that illustrates the power of America’s leadership model— one centered on partnerships. This model was pioneered in 2016, following the West African Ebola outbreak, and cemented in the Trump administration’s 2019 Global Health Security Strategy (GHSS). That strategy and the 2024 GHSS that updated it both reaffirm a U.S. commitment to assist 100 countries to be able to stop outbreaks at the source. The 2024 GHSS further reaffirmed the approach of leveraging partnerships and expertise across the federal government and evolving partnerships with countries to improve their readiness for health threats. Specifically, the U.S. government committed to help 50 countries improve capabilities across critical health security areas, such as laboratory systems and surveillance. These 50 countries were identified through a consultative process across federal agencies and with U.S. embassies, considering factors such as analyses of country health systems, socioeconomic indicators, and connectivity to the U.S. including travel and trade linkages. When a country becomes a global health security partner of the U.S. government, USAID and CDC work with counterparts in the partner government to select measurable targets in national health security plans. These targets inform what activities each agency invests in, so that U.S. support accelerates the ability of partner governments to achieve their priority targets. In the last few years, USAID and CDC teams began joint work plans at the country level—a detailed process that ensures no funding is duplicative and that it directly supports governments on a pathway to ownership, accountability, and sustainability. USAID/BURUNDI MISSION
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