GENEVA: In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), people infected with Ebola have been fighting for their lives with little more than fluids and supportive care. Healthcare workers cannot do much more because there are no approved treatments for the Bundibugyo virus, nor vaccines to stop its spread. 

About two months after the outbreak was first declared in the conflict-ridden Ituri province, there have been 2,124 confirmed cases, including 828 deaths, from Ebola disease caused by the Bundibugyo virus (as of Jul 15). The outbreak has spread across four DRC provinces, into neighboring Uganda, with European and American aid workers infected too. 

But that alone does not explain how this has become the world’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak. This outbreak surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases within 40 days of response activation compared to the 2018 Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, which reached the same mark in 235 days. Today’s lack of options is the symptom of a much older failure.

For Medecins Sans Frontieres (also known as Doctors Without Borders or MSF) teams among the responders on the ground, what is unfolding is painfully familiar. The uncomfortable truth is that this outbreak is not an exception. 

THE WORLD STOPPED PREPARING

This outbreak is the result of a familiar pattern. Disease preparedness does not fail because it does not work. It fails because the world invests in it only during crises - and abandons it once the headlines fade. 

Previous Bundibugyo virus outbrea...