00:00What is it about this outbreak? I mean, you write in your column that they were expecting an outbreak, but
00:05not this one.
00:06Why not this strain? And why not at this time? Why is this so dangerous?
00:12Really, it's because of the fact that this is actually a rare strain of Ebola.
00:16Bundabugio has only turned up twice that we know of since 2007.
00:22Both times, the cumulative number of cases was fewer than 200.
00:26So experts were predicting the next Ebola outbreak would more likely be the Zaire strain that caused the devastating outbreak
00:35in West Africa just over a decade ago.
00:38And so this one wasn't on anyone's radar.
00:42I want to ask you, you quote Dr. Craig Spencer in your piece, and those of us who have lived
00:46in New York for a while remember when he, a doctor who was based here, came back from Africa carrying
00:51Ebola and the kind of fracas that that caused here in the city.
00:55I remember there was a bowling alley in Brooklyn that closed down.
00:57There was a lot of objects just surrounding him being here and having a positive case here in the United
01:01States.
01:01He now is at Brown University continuing to study this disease.
01:05What did he say about the response to this one compared to what we saw back in 2014 and 2016?
01:11How are the circumstances surrounding this one different, both in terms of the epidemiological side of things and also just
01:16the public health response?
01:18Yeah, so we know that with this particular strain, Bundabugio, there is no approved treatment or vaccine.
01:25So unlike Zaire that we'd been, the world had been sort of practicing and countering with vaccines and monoclonal antibody
01:36therapies, here we have nothing like that.
01:40We're going back to where we were in 2014 just with supportive care.
01:44So from that perspective, it's kind of really just devastating, but also because many of the mechanisms that we had
01:54in place to try to arrest these outbreaks quickly to get on top of them have been kind of wound
01:59back through aid cuts, for example, cuts to the CDC, research being pared back at the NIH.
02:08So on that level, too, it's also very disappointing.
02:12Yeah, you have another quote from Dr. Spencer about that exact thing in your piece saying, you know,
02:17the deeper frustration is the sense that the world keeps repeating the same cycle of panic and neglect.
02:22We've put together, torn down, put together, torn down the infrastructure that we need to do all this in the
02:26span of a decade.
02:28Talk to us about how big of a deal it is for there's been a lot of cuts across the
02:33board globally to NGOs, but especially the dissolution of USAID and what kind of a difference that made, even if
02:40it's not medical personnel, just eyes on the ground, logistics, people in villages noticing things that they can report back.
02:46Like really basic things are not happening.
02:48Yeah, exactly. Contact tracing. That's, you know, finding out all of the people that infected people were in contact with
02:56and then checking them, testing them, isolating them, making sure that they aren't infected and then spreading it on.
03:03That work was largely done by USAID officials. And of course, that organization is no longer running.
03:10So there is a big hole there. The U.S. is, of course, withdrawn from the World Health Organization.
03:15So the this U.N. body has lost its biggest donor and has had to pare back on a lot
03:21of its programs around the world.
03:23So we're seeing this all sort of coming to roost.
03:27Jason, last question here is just about the U.S.'s response.
03:30And my inbox this week has been flooded with emails from the State Department emphasizing all that the U.S.
03:35government is doing, noting that the CDC is kind of running point here.
03:38And I kind of catalog here what the CDC has said, that the public health screenings for those arriving from
03:42areas affected by Ebola here in the U.S.,
03:44they're coordinating with airlines, they're enhancing port protection, deploying CDC personnel for outbreak containment,
03:50really emphasizing the fact that their goal here is not to have any Ebola cases here in the United States.
03:55How do you assess the work that the U.S. government is doing, again, drawing that contrast back to 2014,
04:002016?
04:00How radically different is it?
04:04Well, for one thing, Tom Frieden, when he was the CDC director back 10 years ago, Ebola in West Africa
04:11was a full-time job for him, I'm told.
04:14At the moment, the CDC, we have a part-time director.
04:18So, you know, I think that that is that's pretty telling.
04:22There are so many parts of the U.S. health and human services bureaucracy that are missing.
04:28There's no surgeon general.
04:31There's no FDA commissioner.
04:33Like, if you go through the list, there are a lot of pieces missing.
04:37And while, sure, the State Department is saying that they've got people on the ground,
04:43reporting, I think, by The New York Times is suggesting that many of those jobs that are ostensibly, you know,
04:48on the ground in DRC are actually vacant.
04:53Yeah.
04:53Jason, appreciate the time, especially on Saturday night for you down there in Australia.
04:56Very grateful for that.
04:57That's Jason Gale, author of the book After COVID, The Health Impacts of the Last Generations,
05:01a medical and science editor for us here at Bloomberg News.
05:03Be sure to read Jason's weekend essay right now at Bloomberg.com.
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