Global Pulse

分类： health

  • US plans to fight flesh-eating screwworm outbreak with flies and dogs

    US plans to fight flesh-eating screwworm outbreak with flies and dogs

    For the first time in nearly 60 years, the flesh-eating parasite New World Screwworm has been detected within U.S. borders, prompting federal agriculture and health officials to roll out a coordinated response plan that is already facing scrutiny over its limited capacity and political fallout.

    The confirmation of the infection came Wednesday, when agricultural inspectors identified screwworm larvae in the umbilical region of a three-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, a small town located just 48 kilometers from the U.S.-Mexico border. This marked the first established local detection of the parasite in the U.S. since 1966, ending decades of the country being free of the pest.

    New World Screwworm is a dangerous parasitic fly that poses severe threats to both warm-blooded animals and humans. Female flies lay their eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes of living hosts; once hatched, the hundreds of resulting larvae burrow into living flesh using sharp mouthparts, and can kill the host if left untreated. Full-grown screwworm flies can reach twice the size of common houseflies.

    In response to the detection, U.S. officials have moved quickly to implement a multi-layered strategy to stop the parasite from spreading and triggering a full outbreak. At its core is the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), a decades-old proven method for insect population control that works by releasing massive numbers of radiation-sterilized male flies into the wild. Since female screwworms only mate once in their lifetime, any mating with a sterile male results in unfertilized eggs that never hatch, gradually suppressing the wild population. SIT has been successfully used to control other harmful insect populations, from fruit flies to disease-carrying mosquitoes.

    Additional containment measures include establishing a 20-kilometer-wide control zone around the detection site, where the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has implemented mandatory quarantines, movement restrictions for livestock and other warm-blooded animals, and widespread active surveillance. Along the southern border, U.S. authorities have deployed the specialized “Beagle Brigade”—a team of sniffer dogs trained to detect screwworm in incoming animals and goods—to intercept new introductions of the pest. Officials are also urging private ranchers to proactively cover all open wounds on their cattle to prevent infestations, and advising the public to check themselves and their companion animals for signs of the parasite and report any suspected cases immediately.

    Despite these measures, experts and local stakeholders warn that the response currently faces a critical gap: insufficient production capacity for the sterile flies that are the backbone of the eradication effort. USDA officials estimate they need up to 600 million sterile flies per week to reverse the current population growth and halt the parasite’s spread. However, existing production facilities in the U.S. and Mexico combined can only output around 100 million sterile flies weekly. As of Thursday, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins confirmed that authorities have only released 4 million sterile flies via ground distribution since the calf detection, adding to the 4 million released weekly by air since February—far below the required volume. Sonja Swiger, an entomologist at Texas A&M University, noted that during successful eradication efforts in the 1970s, officials deployed 500 to 700 million sterile flies weekly across Central America to push the parasite south of Panama’s Darien Gap.

    While public health officials stress that the immediate threat of widespread human infection is currently low, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 2,070 human cases tied to this latest northward spread of the parasite. Cattle ranchers across Texas warn that a full-scale outbreak could have devastating impacts on the multi-billion-dollar U.S. beef industry, threatening livestock populations and disrupting domestic and global markets.

    The detection has also sparked intense political controversy over how the parasite reached U.S. soil, with opposing parties blaming each other for policy failures that allowed the incursion. Democratic lawmakers and Texas agricultural officials have criticized the Trump administration’s 2025 decision to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which previously ran a long-standing monitoring and control program that tracked screwworm populations across Central America. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller condemned the federal response as “slow, bureaucratic, and incomplete,” arguing that failures in prevention allowed the pest to advance unchecked through Mexico to the Texas border. Miller has called for the deployment of insecticide traps, a measure federal officials rejected Thursday, noting the traps are ineffective against screwworm and rely on chemicals classified as probable human carcinogens that harm wildlife. For its part, the Trump administration has pushed back against criticism: Secretary Rollins blamed the parasite’s advance on “open border” policies and criminal cartel smuggling of unregulated livestock and pets, and said Mexico’s own response to the spread has left “a lot to be desired.”

    The current northward advance of screwworm comes after decades of regional control efforts that saw mixed results. After pushing the parasite south of Panama in the 1970s, regional cases began to rebound starting in 2022, when Panama reported a sharp spike in infections. Cases spread steadily north through Central America, reached Mexico by 2024, and have now crept across the U.S. border. Entomologists note that while screwworm is native to tropical American regions and naturally prefers warm climates, climate change may be allowing the parasite to expand its range further north than has been recorded in modern history. To address the production shortfall, the U.S. recently opened a new sterile fly production facility at Moore Air Force Base in Edinburg, Texas, though it will take time for the site to ramp up output to the required levels.

    Rollins emphasized Thursday that officials are confident they can prevent the parasite from becoming permanently established in the U.S., but critics warn that delays in ramping up response capacity could allow the population to grow out of control before the full eradication effort is in place.

  • Women are the first caregivers in this Ebola outbreak and the most at risk

    Women are the first caregivers in this Ebola outbreak and the most at risk

    In the heart of eastern Congo’s Ituri province, where one of the most rapidly expanding Ebola outbreaks in recorded history is unfolding, 28-year-old Aline Kasiwa makes an unwavering, dangerous choice every single day. For a week, she has cared for her ailing mother—feeding her, helping her drink, washing her clothes—all while acutely aware that every interaction puts her at risk of contracting the deadly Bundibugyo Ebola virus, a strain with no approved vaccine or targeted treatment. Too terrified to bring her mother to a local hospital, where she has heard even medical staff are dying from the disease, Kasiwa says she has no other option: “She is the only family I have left. I cannot abandon her.” With nothing but a low-cost cloth face mask to shield herself, Kasiwa embodies a stark, underreported reality of this crisis: women across eastern Congo are disproportionately exposed to Ebola, forced into frontline caregiving roles that leave them far more vulnerable to infection than their male counterparts.

    Dr. Furaha Elisabeth, director of Bunia’s Karibuni Wa Maman gynecology and obstetrics clinic, explains that social norms in the region place almost all informal care work on women’s shoulders. “It’s the woman who gives them a bath, it’s the woman who feeds them, and it’s the woman who’s there to wash the dirty clothes and everything else,” she says. Beyond at-home care, women also traditionally lead burial preparation for deceased family members—a practice that carries extremely high Ebola transmission risk, given the virus spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids.

    History bears out the lopsided risk of this crisis. Data from past Ebola outbreaks consistently shows women suffer higher infection and death rates than men. During the 1970s first recorded Ebola outbreak, 56% of deaths were women, according to UN Women. In the 2018–2020 Congo outbreak—the deadliest the country has ever experienced—women and girls made up roughly two-thirds of all confirmed cases. Sofia Calltorp, UN Women’s chief of humanitarian action, says the same pattern is already emerging in the current outbreak. “Ebola transmission follows social realities,” she notes. “The virus spreads along the lines of care-giving, domestic labor, front-line health work and burial practices.”

    Compounding this inequality is a catastrophic shortage of critical personal protective equipment (PPE) that leaves both professional health workers and family caregivers defenseless. Staff at Karibuni Wa Maman clinic, which screens symptomatic patients before referring them to larger treatment centers, say they have received no full PPE since the outbreak began, despite repeated appeals to national health authorities. The clinic is run by local aid group Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development, whose president Julienne Lusenge says the only supplies the organization has secured from international and state partners are a small amount of hand sanitizer and a handful of masks for clinical staff. This gap puts even informal caregivers at extreme risk, Lusenge adds: most women caring for sick relatives at home do not even know their loved one may have Ebola, let alone have access to gear to protect themselves. “During previous outbreaks, many women died because they were the ones nursing sick family members,” she says.

    Pregnant women face a particularly devastating, impossible dilemma. Many avoid seeking routine prenatal care at local clinics out of fear of contracting Ebola, leaving them and their unborn children without life-saving monitoring. Anny Ekyambo, a 32-year-old Bunia resident five months pregnant, says she shares this fear with most other pregnant women in her community. “I know that there are steps we must follow with the doctors to monitor the pregnancy and the baby, but we have no choice because this epidemic frightens us,” she explains. UN Women points out that pregnant women already face higher exposure due to their regular need for health services, and Lusenge warns that avoiding care will have dire secondary consequences: “We risk seeing a rise in prenatal and postnatal mortality, for both mothers and children.”

    As of this week, Congolese authorities have confirmed 344 cases of Ebola, including 60 deaths, with dozens more suspected cases yet to be tested. Neighboring Uganda has recorded 15 confirmed cases and one death. The outbreak was identified weeks later than it should have been, because the rare Bundibugyo strain was not included in initial testing protocols. Even with incremental improvements in response coordination and new aid arrivals in recent days, medical charity Doctors Without Borders says the virus is still spreading faster than intervention teams can contain it. “Nobody knows the true scale and severity of this outbreak,” said Dr. Alan Gonzalez, the organization’s deputy director of operations.

    Multiple overlapping challenges have hampered the international and state response to the crisis. Ituri province, where the outbreak is centered, is located more than 1,000 kilometers from Congo’s capital Kinshasa, with crumbling road networks and chronically underfunded, underequipped health facilities. Ongoing violent conflict has further blocked access: the Islamic State-allied Allied Democratic Forces rebel group operates in the region, while the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel militia controls key urban centers in neighboring North Kivu and South Kivu, where additional cases have been confirmed. Decades of conflict have also left local communities deeply wary of outside authorities and medical workers, pushing more people to rely on at-home care from family members rather than seek official treatment—once again shifting the risk onto women.

    This coverage is supported by the Gates Foundation as part of AP News’ global health and development reporting in Africa, with the AP retaining full editorial control over all content.

  • Flesh-eating screwworm arrives in US with first case detected in Texas cattle

    Flesh-eating screwworm arrives in US with first case detected in Texas cattle

    After a 60-year absence of the parasitic New World Screwworm (NWS) from United States territory, federal agricultural officials have confirmed that the flesh-eating parasite has been detected in a Texas calf, marking the first confirmed U.S. case since 1966. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the confirmation in an official briefing Wednesday evening, noting that the parasite has been steadily spreading northward across Mexico over the past 12 months before crossing the southern border.

    Preventive work to slow the parasite’s advance into the U.S. has been ongoing for years, as public and agricultural health officials monitored rising case counts across Central America and Mexico. The infected calf, a three-week-old animal, was found in La Pryor, Texas, a small community located roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border. The parasitic larvae were discovered in the calf’s umbilical region, where an open wound provided a prime egg-laying site for adult female screwworm flies.

    New World Screwworm is a dangerous parasitic species that preys exclusively on warm-blooded hosts. Adult females lay their clutches of eggs in open wounds or moist mucous membranes of living animals. Once the eggs hatch, hundreds of voracious larvae use their sharp mouthparts to burrow deep into the host’s living flesh to feed. If the infestation is left untreated, it almost always results in the death of the host. While NWS can also infest humans and domestic pets, public health officials emphasize that the risk of human infection remains very low, and confirmed human cases are extremely rare. The parasite also does not pose any threat to beef or livestock food safety, authorities confirmed.

    For U.S. cattle ranchers, a widespread outbreak of NWS carries significant economic risk: an uncontrolled spread would likely reduce national cattle herds, cut overall beef production, and push retail beef prices higher for American consumers. In response to the first confirmed case, state and federal agricultural authorities have moved quickly to contain the parasite. A 12.4-mile (20-kilometer) detection and quarantine zone has been established around the site of the infection, aimed at stopping the movement of infested animals — the most common vector for NWS spread.

    Officials are also moving forward with a longstanding planned intervention: releasing millions of sterile male screwworm flies into the affected zone. Because female screwworm flies only mate once during their lifespan, any mating with a sterile male will result in unfertilized eggs that never hatch, gradually reducing the local population over time.

    USDA officials noted that years of preventive preparation have already delayed the parasite’s arrival in the U.S. by a full year. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins moved quickly to reassure livestock producers, confirming that USDA response teams have already deployed to South Texas to support containment and monitoring operations, and urging all livestock owners across the region to remain vigilant for signs of infection.

    Despite the federal government’s response, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has publicly criticized the federal approach, arguing that authorities have moved too slowly to address the threat. Miller told Reuters that the USDA has relied exclusively on the sterile fly release strategy, a partial solution that takes years to reach full effectiveness, rather than deploying every available prevention and containment tool immediately. The dispute highlights the high stakes of containing what is widely considered one of the most dangerous livestock parasites in the Western Hemisphere.

  • Why Canada has generic Ozempic, and the US doesn’t

    Why Canada has generic Ozempic, and the US doesn’t

    For months, 69-year-old retired Canadian Elizabeth Doran has juggled extra substitute teaching shifts, manufacturer discount cards, and introductory free offers just to afford her GLP-1 weight loss medication. Living with prediabetes and high blood pressure in Ottawa, Doran was prescribed Novo Nordisk’s brand-name Wegovy rather than its sister diabetes drug Ozempic — both of which rely on the active ingredient semaglutide — because she had not yet been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. This classification left her ineligible for Ontario’s insurance coverage for diabetic seniors, forcing her to pay between CAD 350 and CAD 500 out of pocket every single month.

  • Tools to fight hantavirus show promise despite limited funding. Now researchers hope to continue

    Tools to fight hantavirus show promise despite limited funding. Now researchers hope to continue

    A recent deadly hantavirus outbreak linked to a Chile-based cruise ship has thrown a long-overlooked public health threat back into the global spotlight, highlighting decades of underinvestment in developing life-saving countermeasures for the rare but lethal rodent-borne virus. Unlike the COVID-19 pandemic pathogen, hantaviruses — a diverse family of viruses documented globally for over half a century — have never drawn the sustained funding needed to advance viable treatments or licensed vaccines, even as rising human-rodent contact driven by climate change threatens to make outbreaks more common. Hantaviruses typically spread to humans when individuals inhale aerosolized particles contaminated with rodent excrement, with different regional strains triggering a range of dangerous symptoms. The Andes virus, the strain at the center of the cruise ship incident, is uniquely concerning among hantaviruses: it is the only strain confirmed to spread between humans in limited scenarios. With an overall mortality rate as high as 35% for some North American strains, the virus qualifies as a serious public health priority, according to leading researchers. The cruise ship outbreak, which resulted in three deaths out of 13 confirmed cases among passengers, fits a pattern of rising regional infection rates: Chile has recorded 15 deaths and 42 confirmed cases this year alone, while Argentina has reported 32 deaths and 102 cases since June 2025. For decades, research teams across Chile, Argentina, the United States and Germany have worked to develop effective interventions, but a lack of consistent backing from governments, global health bodies and pharmaceutical companies has stalled progress. Rarity of human infections, limited person-to-person spread, and a perceived small commercial market for treatments have all deterred the large-scale investment required for rigorous clinical safety and efficacy testing. However, new preliminary research published this week has offered a glimmer of hope, and researchers are hopeful the renewed attention from the cruise outbreak will accelerate progress. A team led by Dr. Fernando Tortosa of Argentina’s National University of Río Negro reported promising results for tocilizumab, an existing drug approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis, in treating hantavirus pulmonary syndrome — the life-threatening complication that causes fluid to build up in the lungs and triggers organ failure. Tocilizumab works by suppressing IL-6, a molecule that drives damaging inflammation in autoimmune conditions; researchers hypothesize the same inflammatory pathway is responsible for the most severe hantavirus cases. In an ongoing compassionate use trial at an Argentinian hospital, four out of five patients who received tocilizumab alongside standard supportive care survived. By contrast, all five eligible patients who did not receive the drug (due to supply shortages and rapidly declining health) died from the infection. While researchers caution the control group was older and sicker than the treatment group on average, the results are compelling enough to warrant large-scale follow-up research. Other research programs are also advancing, if slowly. A team including Chilean virologist María Inés Barría, U.S. National Institutes of Health researchers and German scientists from the Robert Koch Institute is developing a passive antibody treatment that uses cloned antibodies from hantavirus survivors to fight infection. The approach proved effective in animal trials published in 2018, but development stalled after funding was diverted to the COVID-19 response, with no progress toward human trials to date. Multiple other research groups in the U.S. are also pursuing antibody-based interventions, while several vaccine candidates are in different stages of development. While limited vaccines for some Old World hantavirus strains have been developed regionally, no hantavirus vaccine is currently licensed for widespread global use, according to the World Health Organization. One candidate targeting the Andes virus, developed by a team led by Jay Hooper of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, successfully induced protective antibody responses in early-stage human trials back in 2020, but has not advanced to full approval. Experts note that significant barriers remain to bringing safe, effective interventions to market. Dr. Paul Bollyky, an infectious disease researcher at Stanford Medical Center, explained that rare, sporadic pathogens like hantavirus face unique structural challenges to research and development. Many labs lack the specialized infrastructure needed to test and validate countermeasures for rare pathogens, and the unpredictable nature of hantavirus outbreaks makes large-scale clinical trials logistically and financially impractical. The small, unsteady commercial market for a hantavirus vaccine or treatment also discourages private pharmaceutical investment, since it is impossible to predict who will be exposed and when. Despite these hurdles, researchers argue the new findings and renewed attention from the cruise ship outbreak create a critical window to advance progress. “I hope this situation will help us continue our research and strengthen the collaboration between healthcare workers, the community, and the necessary resources,” Tortosa said, noting that the current tragedy holds lessons for addressing underfunded public health threats beyond hantavirus. Barría added that her team’s antibody research is now on the cusp of moving into human trials, representing a long-awaited step forward in decades of work.

  • ‘We’re still behind’ in Congo’s Ebola outbreak even as testing improves, WHO says

    ‘We’re still behind’ in Congo’s Ebola outbreak even as testing improves, WHO says

    The ongoing Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to pose a severe public health challenge, with global health authorities acknowledging they are playing catch-up after the virus gained an unchallenged head start in the vulnerable region. World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters Wednesday that while incremental progress has been made through improved diagnostic testing, response efforts still lag behind the spread of the disease.

    The outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola for which no licensed vaccine or targeted treatment exists, was first formally announced in mid-May. As of the latest official data from Congolese health authorities, 344 confirmed cases and 60 confirmed deaths have been recorded across three eastern provinces: Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu. The number of pending suspected cases has dropped sharply from 906 to 116, a shift that reflects expanded testing capacity rather than a sudden decline in transmission. The outbreak has already spilled across the border into neighboring Uganda, where the country’s ministry of health confirmed 15 cases and one fatality as of Tuesday.

    Long before the outbreak was officially confirmed, the virus circulated undetected for weeks in a region already crippled by years of armed conflict and systemic instability. Medical resources including personal protective equipment for frontline workers have been urgently deployed to the affected zone, but multiple structural barriers continue to hinder an effective response. One small bright spot has emerged: at least five patients have already recovered from infection, offering rare encouragement to response teams.

    Even as diagnostic capabilities improve, one of the most critical tools for stopping Ebola—contact tracing to identify and isolate new potential cases early—remains far below the threshold needed to contain transmission. Tedros noted that only around 45% of known contacts of confirmed cases are currently being actively monitored. To stop chains of transmission, public health experts agree that contact tracing coverage needs to exceed 90%. Persistent insecurity, mass population displacement, and the highly mobile nature of communities in the border region have made systematic contact tracing extraordinarily difficult.

    Eastern DRC has long been plagued by active armed insurgencies, including the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group that captured major urban centers Goma and Bukavu more than a year ago, and the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist insurgent group aligned with the Islamic State that operates across the DRC-Uganda border. Decades of ongoing violence have left millions of displaced people living in overcrowded, under-resourced settlements that create ideal conditions for infectious disease to spread. Beyond security challenges, response teams also face community resistance: misinformation that claims Ebola is not a real threat has kept some residents from seeking urgent medical care, and angry community members have attacked health facilities in disputes over access to the bodies of loved ones who died from the virus.

    Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Monday that the true scale of the outbreak remains unclear, urging caution when interpreting official case counts due to extremely limited testing access and inability to safely reach many affected areas. The road to bringing a safe, effective vaccine to the region could take months, according to public health experts. Congolese epidemiologist Dr. Aruna Abedi, who has led responses to previous Ebola outbreaks in the country, told the Associated Press that developing and deploying a vaccine that meets rigorous scientific safety and efficacy standards cannot be rushed.

    When asked about the controversial U.S.-operated Ebola quarantine facility in Kenya that has sparked widespread public protests, Tedros declined to criticize the operation, noting that “based on their risk assessment … they can do whatever they think is right for them.” The facility, which is reserved exclusively for U.S. citizens exposed to Ebola in the DRC outbreak, has drawn pushback from Kenyan activists and community leaders who argue it represents unnecessary risk and unequal treatment.

  • DR Congo airport reopens in Ebola-hit area as suspected cases drop

    DR Congo airport reopens in Ebola-hit area as suspected cases drop

    Nearly two weeks after flight restrictions were imposed to slow the spread of an ongoing Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the key airport serving the epidemic’s epicentre has resumed regular commercial operations, as health officials confirm a sharp drop in the number of pending suspected cases. This outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, was formally declared a major public health emergency by the DRC government on May 15, just days after the first cases were detected in the conflict-affected Ituri province. Within 48 hours of the declaration, the World Health Organization elevated the event to an international public health alert, triggering a coordinated global response to contain the virus before it could spread more broadly beyond national borders.

  • As Congo grapples with Ebola, volunteers cook up meals to support patients and health workers

    As Congo grapples with Ebola, volunteers cook up meals to support patients and health workers

    In the sweltering heat of Bunia, the epicenter of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak, one quiet act of service forms an unexpected backbone of the regional response effort. Arlette Basekawike, a volunteer with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), spends nearly every waking hour in a cramped open-air shed outside a local health facility, stirring large pots of food and planning menus for patients on the frontline of this public health crisis.

    Clad in a protective pink bonnet covering her hair, Basekawike starts each day early, preparing porridge, fluffy omelets, and fresh bread for patients admitted to the Evangelical Medical Center. For afternoon and evening meals, she serves up seasoned fresh fish paired with fufu — the region’s beloved starchy staple made from mashed plantains — followed by ripe seasonal fruit. On a recent Monday, as she diced vegetables, potatoes and goat meat for a large batch of stew, she explained the quiet purpose that drives her work.

    “Even though patients carry this terrible disease, a warm, good meal still lifts their spirits and helps them feel stronger,” Basekawike told the Associated Press. “And for the doctors and nurses working endless shifts, this food gives them the energy they need to treat patients and administer care. I’m here for them like a parent would be — I just want to make them feel as comfortable as possible through this.”

    On paper, Basekawike’s work may look like a simple, unremarkable task. But public health officials say her contributions, and the work of the entire WFP nutrition team here, have emerged as critical support for a region grappling with the fast-moving spread of Bundibugyo virus — the rare Ebola species confirmed in eastern Congo back in May.

    As of this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 321 total cases of Ebola disease across three eastern Congolese provinces: Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, with 48 recorded deaths. Neighboring Uganda has detected nine cases and one fatality, prompting authorities to close the entire shared border between the two countries to slow transmission.

    Long before this outbreak was declared, this already beleaguered region was grappling with one of the world’s most severe food insecurity crises. Years of ongoing armed conflict between government forces and rebel groups have displaced millions of people, leaving vast communities without reliable access to consistent, nutritious food. The emergence of Ebola has layered a new, deadly crisis on top of pre-existing fragility, creating a devastating cascade that the United Nations warns complicates every effort to contain the outbreak among a population already deeply strained by hardship.

    “We operate in a region where huge portions of the population already face acute food insecurity tied directly to war and displacement,” explained Olivier Nkakudulu, head of WFP’s Ituri province operations. “These needs already existed — Ebola is just an additional crisis stacked on top of a crisis.”

    Compounding these challenges, the already resource-strapped WFP now faces severe operational disruptions driven by major aid cuts from the United States and other key global donor partners. With global partners pulling back or reducing their funding pledges, the overall effort to contain the outbreak — which WHO has already classified as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern — has been severely hampered by the funding shortfall.

    On top of funding gaps, responders also face persistent threats: attacks on health care workers by local residents suspicious of the outbreak response, and constant delays to aid delivery caused by ongoing fighting in the region have both worked together to slow efforts to curb transmission.

    Even against these stacked obstacles, WFP and local health teams confirm they have managed to meet the basic nutritional needs of Ebola patients and frontline workers so far. Still, as case counts climb, that balance is becoming harder to maintain.

    “Today we need to increase the volume of food we provide, because the number of patients has gone up,” said Esther Bao, a nurse and volunteer on the response team. She added that many patients, weakened by the progression of Ebola, require specialized, tailored meals that cannot follow a one-size-fits-all menu.

    Unlike some more common Ebola species, the Bundibugyo virus has no approved vaccine or targeted treatment currently available. Care teams can only treat symptoms as they appear, but even that supportive care has yielded small victories: five patients have successfully recovered from the virus to date.

    The scope of the outbreak continues to expand at an alarming rate. According to Congo’s Ministry of Health, what began with transmission limited to just three initial health zones has now spread to 22 affected zones as of last weekend.

    To date, WFP has served 120 meals across four treatment facilities in a single recent Sunday, bringing the total number of meals provided since the nutrition program launched on May 28 to 404, according to Nkakudulu. But he stressed that the financial situation remains extremely precarious.

    “Without additional emergency funding, we won’t be able to prioritize every suspected case for nutritional support,” Nkakudulu said. “We might be forced to only provide for some patients, and leave others with no food to help them through their treatment.”

    This report was compiled by AP correspondents, with additional contribution from Adetayo reporting from Lagos, Nigeria.

  • ‘I gave birth in the street’: Conflict makes childbirth risky in parts of Africa

    ‘I gave birth in the street’: Conflict makes childbirth risky in parts of Africa

    Near the Sudan-Central African Republic border, in the sweltering, dust-choked Birao refugee camp, Maude Ahmad Fadala’s story of childbirth encapsulates a growing public health catastrophe unfolding across conflict-stricken sub-Saharan Africa. Weakened by typhoid after fleeing Sudan’s ongoing civil war, Fadala went into labor at the camp that offered no obstetric care, and she had no money to pay for transport to the nearest medical facility. Staggering along rough dirt roads, stopping every few steps to ride out crippling contractions, she eventually could go no further. “I gave birth in the street,” she recalled. “There was no doctor, no midwife, and no one holding my hand.”

    Fadala’s experience is far from an isolated tragedy. It is one of hundreds of thousands of preventable maternal deaths recorded every year across sub-Saharan Africa, a region home to the world’s fastest-growing population and 70% of all global pregnancy-related maternal deaths – roughly 182,000 fatalities annually. Data from the World Health Organization confirms that nearly two-thirds of all maternal deaths worldwide occur in nations grappling with armed conflict or systemic fragility. For women like Fadala, who cross borders to escape war, the danger of dying in childbirth does not end when they reach safety; displacement itself amplifies risk at every turn.

    Displacement strips pregnant women of access to routine prenatal care, forces dangerous multi-mile journeys to access even basic health services, and strains already depleted health systems in host regions. The United Nations estimates that women in the Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest nations, face a maternal mortality rate of 829 deaths per 100,000 births – 40 times higher than the rate recorded in the United States. Years of internal conflict have gutted the country’s health infrastructure, leaving critical care concentrated almost exclusively in major urban centers. Despite the Central African Republic’s extensive gold reserves, one in three residents survive on less than $2 per day, and health services remain nonexistent for many communities in remote border regions.

    In 2024, the Central African government acknowledged the depth of its maternal mortality crisis and announced a plan to increase funding for skilled birth attendants and reproductive care, but officials have not responded to requests for updates on the initiative’s implementation. What has worsened the crisis dramatically in recent years is sweeping cuts to humanitarian aid from the world’s top donors, led by the United States. In Birao, the border camp where Fadala now lives, all four local midwives who had received support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) lost their jobs last year, after the Trump administration cut all U.S. funding for the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency.

    Before the funding cuts, UNFPA operated four “safe birthing spaces” across Birao that served nearly 50,000 women, providing emergency transport for pregnant people to the local district hospital. All of those facilities have closed, along with two additional U.S.-backed health clinics. Across the entire country, UNFPA’s operating budget has been cut in half over the past two years, falling to just $6.5 million. Before the cuts, the agency was the sole provider of reproductive health supplies across Birao. “The risk of maternal death is going to increase if there is no solution,” said Victor Rakoto, UNFPA’s country director for the Central African Republic. U.N. data underscores this warning: conflict-affected settings like Birao account for six in 10 maternal deaths globally.

    A visit to Birao’s understaffed district hospital – the facility Fadala was never able to reach – reveals the full scale of the crisis. On a recent workday, dozens of pregnant women waited shoulder-to-shoulder on hard wooden benches in sweltering, unventilated waiting areas, many having walked for hours or risked complications by riding motorbikes over rutted dirt roads to reach care. Birthing assistant Delphine Zanabe moves between patients nonstop, saying most refugee women only arrive when labor is already well underway, skipping the eight prenatal checkups recommended by the World Health Organization.

    For displaced women, survival mode in unfamiliar territory compounds the existing barriers of generational poverty and limited education, all of which increase the risk of life-threatening complications during pregnancy and childbirth. The hospital’s maternity ward houses eight beds crammed into a room so small the mattresses almost touch, and the ward serves 70,000 local residents plus 22,000 Sudanese refugees. Twelve hospital staff members – most from the maternity department – have already lost their jobs due to aid cuts.

    That staffing shortage has already had fatal consequences. Amna Adam Hessen arrived at the hospital the day before her labor, burning with malaria fever. Her unborn child was in a breech position, a complication discovered far too late because she had been unable to attend prenatal appointments. Rushed to the hospital by motorbike from the camp, Hessen suffered severe hemorrhaging during labor and lost her baby. As her mother fanned her in the suffocating heat the next day, Hessen writhed on a bare foam mattress crying out in pain. “Giving birth here is exhausting,” her mother said.

    Clara Abessendé, one of the four unemployed Birao midwives, described the guilt of leaving her post as demand for care surged after Sudan’s war broke out in early 2023. After the conflict began, the number of pregnant women arriving at the hospital tripled, and staff quickly ran out of critical supplies including antibiotics and malaria treatments. “As a result, there were more cases of infant and maternal deaths,” she said. “The children born in my hands … I abandoned them like that.”

    For women waiting to give birth, the uncertainty is crippling. Katidje Idrisse Tahire, a nine-month pregnant refugee who fled Sudan on foot four months ago, lost all her belongings to armed robbers at the border and has not seen her husband since they fled Darfur. Carrying one child on her back while leading two more to fetch water in the camp, Tahire said she constantly aches, feels exhausted and unwell, and has no way to pay for care when she goes into labor. “I don’t know if anyone will be there to help me,” she said. Currently, more than 40% of all births in the Central African Republic happen outside of medical facilities, a statistic that experts warn will only rise as more aid cuts take hold, turning avoidable complications into fatal outcomes for thousands of women.

  • How health workers in DR Congo are treating Ebola and staying safe

    How health workers in DR Congo are treating Ebola and staying safe

    As a rising tide of Ebola cases spreads across eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), frontline health workers are locked in a desperate race against time to contain the outbreak, treat infected patients, and protect themselves from a pathogen with no targeted approved treatment. This current outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo Ebola species, has already crossed provincial borders from its epicenter in Ituri to North and South Kivu, and even reached neighboring Uganda, fueled by early delays in case detection.