U.S. Investments In Disease Outbreak Preparedness Can Help Prevent Crises Abroad, At Home

Dallas Morning News: Ebola funding restored by the White House shouldn’t have been cut in the first place
Editorial Board

“Here’s the thing about a health crisis. When you are in the middle of it, nearly everyone is on board with pulling out the stops to solve it. But once it passes, apathy can set in and inertia can rule the day. That’s a simplified version of where we nearly ended up with Ebola. Four years ago, the highly contagious and deadly virus showed up in our city and fears of an outbreak spread across the nation. … While this latest Ebola outbreak was re-emerging in the Congo, the risk of falling into apathy was very real in Washington, D.C. There the president used his rescission powers to initially cut the last part of [emergency Ebola funding] that dates back to 2015. Facing pressure, the White House reversed course before Congress acted. Back in 2014 in the thick of the Ebola crisis, such an expenditure would have felt cheap. Now it looks like a smart investment against future risk. Preventing such a disease from reaching an American city requires investing now, before a crisis is again upon us” (6/6).

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