Uganda Urges US to Rethink Funding Cuts as It Battles Ebola

Key points

• Uganda urged the US and other partners to reverse deep cuts to global health funding, warning the pullback may hamper efforts to contain imported Ebola cases linked to an outbreak in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Sudden reductions in support for disease surveillance and healthcare programs have left African countries more exposed to epidemics, especially rare Ebola strains that lack approved vaccines or treatments, Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi said Thursday.
• “The reduction should have been gradual,” Baryomunsi, a public health specialist said in an interview from the capital, Kampala.
• The cuts — most of which were announced last year — should not have been made “abruptly, because that creates huge gaps which can cause a crisis within our communities,” he said.
• The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola has killed 139 people in Congo since the first cases were reported on May 15. The first confirmed cases were...