Ebola in Congo: What Happens When Global Response Capacity Disappears?

MedPage Today<\/em>, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and a public health researcher. He is author of the Substack column Inside Medicine<\/em>.”,”detailed_bio”:”Jeremy Faust, MD, MS, MA, is editor-in-chief of MedPage Today<\/em>, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a public health researcher. He earned his MD and MS in biomedical science research from Mount Sinai, and completed his residency training at Mount Sinai Hospital and Elmhurst Hospital Center. He also holds a Master\u2019s Degree in music composition and theory from UC Davis. \r\n

Faust has published peer reviewed research in JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases and the CDC\u2019s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, among other journals. He also serves on the editorial board of the Annals of Emergency Medicine, and authors the Substack column Inside Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

In his MedPage Today column, \u201cFaust Files,\u201d Faust weighs in on the biggest news in medicine in both written and video commentary.<\/p>“,”affiliation”:””,”credential”:”MD, MS, MA”,”url_identifier”:”jf6550″,”avatar_url”:”https:\/\/assets.medpagetoday.net\/media\/images\/author\/Faust_330px.png”,”avatar_alt_text”:”Jeremy Faust”,”twitter”:”https:\/\/twitter.com\/jeremyfaust”,”links”:null,”has_author_page”:1,”byline”:”Editor-in-Chief, MedPage Today”,”full_name”:”Jeremy Faust”,”title”:”Editor-in-Chief, MedPage Today, “,”url”:”https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/people\/jf6550\/jeremy-faust”,”bluesky”:””}]” categoryimage=”https://assets.medpagetoday.net/media/images/articles/Faust_icon_120.png” categoryimagealt=”Faust Files”/>

In this MedPage Today webinar, Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Faust, MD, speaks with Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and former U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official who helped lead the U.S. response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic.

They discuss the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the challenges facing healthcare workers on the ground, and the consequences of recent disruptions to global health programs. The conversation also explores outbreak detection, containment strategies, vaccine and therapeutic development, and what governments can learn from past public health emergencies.

Jump to sections:

01:34 What is happening in Congo right now?

07:07 PPE shortages and the impact of disrupted aid programs

13:07 How the loss of USAID has affected outbreak response

15:59 What an effective international response should look like

22:25 How modern outbreak response and contact tracing work

25:25 Why community trust is critical to controlling Ebola

33:57 Is preventing Ebola in America the wrong public health goal?

37:50 Vaccines, therapeutics, and the ethics of outbreak research

43:38 How experts know whether an outbreak is coming under control