The former White House coronavirus response coordinator said American public health agencies remain capable of responding, even as the outbreak in Central Africa raises concerns over delayed detection, travel controls and global health readiness.
Former White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said the United States is well positioned to manage the risk posed by the current Ebola outbreak, arguing that federal health agencies still have experienced personnel and emergency-response capacity despite leadership gaps and recent changes to global health programs.
Speaking on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on May 24, 2026, Birx said the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo appears to have gone undetected for several weeks, allowing multiple cycles of infection before authorities fully recognized the scale of the emergency. She said that delay makes the current data difficult to interpret, because many of the cases being reported now likely reflect infections that occurred around two weeks earlier.
The outbreak has drawn international attention as suspected cases and deaths continue to rise in Congo, with additional concern over possible spread to neighboring countries. Birx described the situation as serious but not unprecedented, noting that the DRC has experienced repeated Ebola outbreaks over recent decades. The current challenge, she suggested, is not only the number of cases but the late visibility of the outbreak and the difficulty of responding in areas affected by insecurity and limited health infrastructure.
Asked whether Americans should be worried about the disease reaching the United States, Birx emphasized that the country has strengthened its hospital readiness since earlier Ebola cases nearly a decade ago. She pointed to specialized biocontainment capacity in multiple hospitals and said the U.S. has become more proactive in preventing infectious diseases from entering the country.
Her comments came after heightened scrutiny of travel controls, including the diversion of a flight from Paris to Detroit after a passenger from Congo was reportedly allowed to board despite restrictions. Birx said travel restrictions can be useful only when they are part of a broader response, not when treated as a stand-alone solution. She said U.S. personnel, including disaster-response teams and CDC staff already based in Kinshasa, are part of the current effort on the ground.
The outbreak has also revived debate over whether cuts to U.S. global health programs weakened early-warning systems in Africa. Birx acknowledged that the question deserves examination, especially where local preparedness programs may have been reduced. But she also said the CDC’s global health security work had been retained and that U.S. funding and personnel were now being mobilized.
The former official placed particular emphasis on the role of the Africa CDC, saying the institution had been built with major international investment precisely to improve early detection, testing, protective equipment distribution and community-level response. The failure to identify the outbreak sooner, she said, should prompt a review of why those systems did not work as intended.
Birx also addressed concerns that the U.S. currently lacks confirmed permanent leaders at key agencies, including the CDC, FDA and the Office of the Surgeon General. While she said agency leadership is important, she argued that the federal government still has experienced professionals capable of managing infectious-disease threats.
“There’s a deep bench,” Birx said, referring to career experts across federal health agencies. She added that an interagency Ebola response task force had already been formed and that assets, personnel and funding were being deployed.
The current outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a less common form for which there is no widely available approved vaccine. U.S. officials have also been working with Mapp Biopharmaceutical on an experimental monoclonal antibody treatment as part of preparedness efforts.
For now, U.S. public health officials appear focused on a dual strategy: limiting the risk of importation through travel screening and restrictions, while supporting containment efforts closer to the outbreak’s source. Birx’s central message was one of guarded confidence: the United States has the technical capacity to respond, but the international community must understand why the outbreak was not detected earlier — and act quickly to prevent a regional health emergency from becoming a wider global threat.
