Ebola and the Unraveling of American Competence

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent sixteen months weakening public health infrastructure. The timing could not be worse.

In late April 2026, a hospital in Bunia Health Zone in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) identified a cluster of severe illnesses affecting healthcare workers. The presenting symptoms were alarming but not distinctive: fever, vomiting, the kind of presentation that could indicate any number of pathogens in a region where malaria, typhoid, and dengue circulate constantly. Initial rapid tests came back negative for Ebola. Healthcare workers began treatment based on what they saw. By May 15, eight of thirteen blood samples tested positive for something else entirely. The virus that had terrified the world fifteen years earlier had returned. By May 22, cases had appeared in Kampala, Uganda. The disease had crossed a border. It had found an airport. It was somewhere between Central Africa and everywhere else, and the world was not prepared to respond.

This outbreak, the 17th in the DRC since 1976, was caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a rarer variant than the Zaire spe…