The Trump administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo doesn’t appear to be following the playbook used in previous outbreaks, and it’s sounding alarm bells among biosecurity experts.
Current and former leaders of the U.S.’s infectious disease response apparatus are warning that they’re not seeing the level of coordination between federal agencies that’s needed to successfully respond to such outbreaks abroad.
“The conversations are happening,” said John Lowe, who co-leads the system of medical facilities in the U.S. equipped to respond to dangerous pathogens like Ebola. “It’s just the level of structure and organization to them don’t appear to be there.”