ONYX has tracked the DRC Ebola outbreak since August 10. Day 27. The accountability sentence remains accurate: the vaccine exists; the deployment is inadequate; people are dying in the gap between those two facts. Today: the US HHS has defunded childhood vaccine programs (Section A Story 2) while the DRC’s most urgent public health emergency requires exactly the kind of international health infrastructure and coordination being dismantled domestically.
THE CONNECTION TO SECTION A
The domestic childhood vaccine program defunding and the Congo Ebola outbreak (this story) are not the same story. They are, however, the same category of story: public health infrastructure that exists to prevent vaccine-preventable deaths being inadequately resourced or actively dismantled. On the day the US defunds childhood vaccine programs, the DRC’s vaccine-preventable Ebola outbreak continues with an inadequate international response. The irony is not instructive; it is just accurate.
Day 27. The vaccine exists. The deployment is inadequate. The deaths continue. On the same day, the US defunded its own childhood vaccine programs.
| CONFIDENCE: HIGH | Congo Ebola Day 27 from ONYX August 10 cumulative documentation. |
SOURCES
▸ ONYX August 10 – September 6 — Congo Ebola 27-day tracking
