US Pledges $267 Million More In Ebola Aid To Congo

The United States is sending another $267 million to fight the Ebola outbreak in Congo, bringing total U.S. aid for the outbreak to $887 million, the State Department announced Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

The outbreak, first detected in Congo's Ituri province in May before spreading to Uganda, has killed at least 3,700 people as of the U.N.'s Sept. 22 count. That makes it the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, behind the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa.

The new money fulfills a G7 pledge of up to an additional $500 million, and it came with a message for everyone else. The State Department urged other "capable nations to increase burden sharing to meet the urgency of the moment." The U.N.'s $2.13 billion response plan is only 48 percent funded, leaving a gap of roughly $1.1 billion.

As The Epoch Times notes further, the $887 million in direct aid for the Ebola outbreak is on top of existing U.S. contributions to international aid through the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Since the start of the second Trump administration, U.S. contributions to OCHA's aid programs across 21 key countries have reached $3.8 billion.

A $2 million first tranche contribution was agreed to in December 2025 when the Trump administration outlined its "Humanitarian Reset" framework agreement following the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) and cuts to its funding.

A second tranche of $1.8 billion was made to OCHA on May 14. Part of this includes $350 million in aid to Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan, the department said.

In addition to aid contributions to the United Nations, the United States, under the Trump administration's America First Global Health Strategy, has been outlining bilateral global health agreements with partner countries. In February, Washington and Congo signed a five-year health memorandum of understanding under that strategy, with the United States intending to provide up to $900 million to support HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and child health, and disease surveillance.

The current Ebola outbreak began in Ituri province in northeastern Congo. It quickly spread to Uganda. On May 17, the World Health Organization declared the spread of the virus a public health emergency of international concern.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference on Sept. 16 that transmission is declining in the most affected areas of the outbreak epicenter, with the epidemic mostly contained to northeastern Congo.

But he warned that more work was needed. He said the situation wasn't a single epidemic to manage, but rather "many outbreaks in many places."

According to the CDC's situation page, no Ebola cases associated with this outbreak have been reported in the United States, and the overall risk to the U.S. public and travelers remains low.