US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a House of Representatives committee on Tuesday that the Trump administration is considering appointing a single official to coordinate its response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa.
“I don’t want to use the term ‘Ebola czar’, but (it would be) someone with the qualifications to sort of serve full time in the coordination of the interagency,” Rubio said, adding “a couple of people” were being considered for the role.
“In the interim, the interagency has a daily meeting on this, and we at the State Department have a task force 24/7 on it.”
He also said that the US would re-engage with the global vaccine alliance Gavi amid the Ebola outbreak in several African countries.
Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the decision had been made a few weeks ago to re-engage, after the Trump administration pulled funding from Gavi last year.
Gavi helps the world’s poorest countries to buy vaccines, so they can better protect children from diseases such as measles and diphtheria, but it also works in outbreak response. It has made $50 million available for the ongoing Bundibugyo outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, including $10 million for the immediate response and $40 million to help speed up access to vaccines, which are at an early stage of development.
The Geneva-based group’s budget took a hit last June, when US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr said that the US would no longer provide any funding – representing around $300 million a year – because Gavi ignored safety. Kennedy, a long-time vaccine skeptic, did not provide evidence to support his claim.
Rubio said that Secretary Kennedy had taken a leading role in determining what was going to happen next with Gavi, but the State Department would now re-engage because “we need to drive this to an outcome”.
“The State Department a few weeks ago made the decision that we were going to re-engage on this issue of Gavi, respecting what HHS’ (Department of Health and Human Services) views are on it as well,” Rubio said.
“We’d like to get this issue resolved in an outcome that’s acceptable both to Congress and also to our goals on global health.”
Uganda has confirmed six more new cases of Ebola, bringing the total confirmed in the country so far to 15, the health ministry said on Tuesday, as the U.N. migration agency warned that border closures may increase the risk of the virus spreading.
New cases in Uganda
Meanwhile, Uganda’s health ministry said in a statement on its X account that the six new cases were contacts of other confirmed cases. It said to date there were two discharges from hospital, with 12 people admitted and one death.
The UN International Organization for Migration meanwhile warned that border closures between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo may push people towards less monitored informal crossing points, increasing the risk of further spread of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus.
Uganda has closed its border with Congo, which is at the centre of the Ebola outbreak, to try to limit the spread of the virus.
