Trump Seeks Over $1.4 Billion in Congressional Funding as Ebola Spreads to France

The White House plans to request more than $1.4 billion in new funding from Congress to address the expanding Ebola outbreak, a Trump administration official said as early as yesterday.

The supplemental request will include $800 million earmarked for humanitarian crisis responses. Those funds will support a quarantine center in Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus, as well as supplies, treatment, contact tracing, a regional logistics network and infection‑control measures.

The request follows France’s confirmation of its first Ebola case—a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

U.S. officials are also seeking $500 million from global health‑security funds to prevent the virus from spreading to the United States. That money would cover disease surveillance, laboratory capacity, cross‑border coordination and potential partnerships with multilateral organisations and the private sector, the official told Reuters.

Another $90 million would be allocated to diplomatic efforts, including evacuations and transportation of U.S. citizens infected with the virus to treatment facilities, the official added. The funding request had not been reported previously.

The outbreak in the DRC is linked to the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola. More than 1,000 people have been infected and 267 have died, the World Health Organization said this week—making it the largest number of confirmed cases in the first month of any Ebola episode.

The request comes after a doctor who recently returned to France from a humanitarian mission in the DRC tested positive for Ebola, marking the country’s first confirmed case linked to the current outbreak.

This is also the first confirmed Ebola case in Europe, although an American doctor who tested positive in the DRC was treated at a German hospital last month.

Uganda, a neighbour of the DRC, has also confirmed Ebola cases. The WHO reported that 20 people are known to have been infected there and two deaths have been confirmed.

France’s health ministry said the risk to the population was “very low.” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that sentiment, stating “the risk to the rest of the world is low” and that there was “no need to panic.”

Efforts are underway to trace anyone who may have been in contact with the doctor. Healthcare workers are especially at risk, as Ebola is spread through bodily fluids.

Last week the WHO reported that 17 of the 75 health workers who had contracted Ebola in the DRC had died. The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus, for which no vaccine is currently available.

France has established a “dedicated monitoring system” for aid workers returning from the DRC, the health ministry said.

Both Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and U.S. public‑health authorities say the current Ebola outbreak has the potential to become one of the largest ever, the BBC reported.