To effectively combat disease outbreaks like Ebola, it is necessary to strengthen and expand local health systems, rather than rely on temporary and often ineffective measures from foreign organizations.
Ebola Outbreak Outpacing Response, WHO Warns
On 25 May 2026, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reported that the rapidly evolving Ebola outbreak in Eastern DRC and Uganda had caused over 220 deaths and was outpacing the organization’s response. On its webpage, WHO reported that the Bundibugyo virus, the strain causing the ongoing outbreak, has no vaccine or therapeutics, raising questions about what the organization’s emergency effort should entail. This UN body clarified that it was planning to scale up the establishment of treatment centres, equip laboratories, manage confirmed cases, and engage communities. Also, the revelation by WHO raises questions of how residents of the affected places receive basic health care and emphasizes why building hospitals and equipping labs should have been done long ago to be useful today. The global health body also outlined its efforts to facilitate experimental medicines to treat Ebola patients, efforts that may primarily benefit pharmaceutical companies, even over patients. Meanwhile, the infrastructure that the WHO, Red Cross, or the US military builds during outbreaks — tents — becomes unusable after outbreaks. This paper explores how the ongoing Ebola outbreak emphasizes the role of a strong public health system, which can serve communities in normal times and save more lives during outbreaks as compared to much-vaunted global proposals.
Local Health Interventions vs. Western Organizations’ Awareness Campaigns
Local health systems should be empowered to deliver care to citizens, noting that prevention and management remain the primary way of reducing infections and deaths, primarily because Ebola has no cure. Oppositely, relying on Western firms that may claim to have the capacity to predict or stop outbreaks fails since these organizations bungle the process and fuel the exact outbreaks they were supposed to stop, as the case of Metabiota in West Africa, during the devastating Ebola crisis of 2014 shows. Similarly, preparations for outbreaks done in the US through distribution of testing assays in the country, ostensibly to prepare for bio threats and accidental exposures, suspiciously preceded the 2014 Ebola outbreak, in countries that had not reported handling the virus as the US had. In short, African countries cannot expect that international bodies or the so-called developmental partners can keep their populations safe during health outbreaks.
Foreign organizations’ attempts to address the current Ebola outbreaks have been ineffective, which justifies strengthening local health systems. The AP, in an article published on May 26, presents a story of a volunteer with the Red Cross in Eastern DRC who faces backlash from the locals in Bunia City after trying to raise awareness about the ongoing outbreak, which shows how Western bodies are focusing more on awareness than delivering care. The article leaves out details of what the local health system has been doing or why Western bodies are suddenly concerned about the outbreak that has killed over 200 in weeks, and not about the ongoing war that can often kill hundreds or thousands in a day. Oppositely, an article published by the Guardian on the same day shows that the local health system was engaged in treating and caring for those infected but was overwhelmed after the first weeks of the outbreak. Therefore, it appears that the local health system has adopted a practical approach to healthcare and should be strengthened as opposed to relying on foreign interventions, which have focused primarily on tangential matters such as raising awareness. Despite the AP reporting that surveillance for Ebola was unavailable due to aid cuts implemented by the US and other countries, it appears that resources for raising awareness are available to the WHO and the Red Cross, among others. Citizens in the affected countries may be noting the bizarre behavior of foreign bodies and reacting accordingly, since the volunteer introduced earlier, like others, was pelted with stones and insulted, which displayed mistrust for outsiders.
To further illustrate the lack of trust in foreign bodies that the populace in the DRC displayed, the AP reported that young people had attacked treatment centers (affiliated with Doctors Without Borders) and burned tents in at least three of them where Ebola patients were reportedly being treated. Also, these facilities are located about 1000 km from the capital and are difficult to supply, especially due to the ongoing war. Still, they lacked resources for surveillance and screening, even while the Ebola strain driving the current outbreak has no vaccine or cure. Therefore, the reason for setting up these makeshift centres remains unclear, which may be driving local people’s speculation that Ebola is a colonialist invention.
Instead of focusing solely on raising awareness about Ebola, parties should be concerned about whether each settlement, village, or city has adequate health infrastructure and personnel to provide healthcare to those who may contract Ebola and other illnesses. However, the WHO, Red Cross, and International Rescue Committee have been placing more emphasis on raising awareness and community engagement. The irony of volunteers donning the Red Cross (Croix Rouge) attire being seen walking around neighborhoods and warning people about a highly contagious outbreak, while the practical way of keeping communities safe would be preventing movement between villages, cannot be lost. Still, these bodies insist on having volunteers move across settlements, villages, and cities and shout scary information over megaphones about this or the other contagion. They also arrange face-to-face meetings with some residents, a practice that can accelerate the spread of contagious illnesses.
Building Robust Local Healthcare Systems is the Key
The key way through which populations in the DRC, Uganda, and other African countries can be kept safe from Ebola and other infectious diseases is by expanding their healthcare system and building robust infrastructure for daily health needs and future emergencies in all settlements, villages, and cities. It is much easier to teach and equip populations on how to handle contagious patients in normal times than during an outbreak. Teaching citizens should be handled by the local public health system. Also, it is safer to have medical teams moving around to not only train residents but also to equip them with medicines and personal protective equipment before outbreaks occur. Additionally, it is prudent to build well-equipped health facilities in villages and settlements to address daily health needs, while equipping them with capacities for emergencies, such as specialized isolation wards and advanced laboratories. As the past and current outbreaks show, relying on Western abilities has proven to be inadequate, as Western bodies have only provided makeshift structures such as tents, inadequate surveillance, and raising awareness, which cannot effectively help during and after disease outbreaks.
Simon Chege Ndiritu is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
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