The Scoop
A group of Democratic senators led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is introducing legislation that would require President Donald Trump to rejoin the World Health Organization and immediately begin coordinating with the body on the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.
In addition to introducing the bill, Shaheen also spearheaded a Democratic letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging him to issue a blanket waiver allowing government agencies to work with the WHO on the outbreak response, despite the US withdrawal from the organization.
The legislation would require Trump to take “all necessary steps” for the US to rejoin the WHO no later than 30 days after its enactment, and to immediately collaborate with the organization on the Ebola response. It would also authorize funding to cover WHO membership contributions and support the organization’s efforts to tackle the virus.
The bill, details of which were shared first with Semafor, is being sponsored by a dozen Democrats including Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The legislation is highly unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled Senate. However, it is an answer-of-sorts to Trump’s supplemental budget request reported Wednesday that asked for $1.4 billion in funding to address the Ebola crisis.
“The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the WHO last year, cuts to foreign assistance programming and the stalling of funds to critical vaccine organizations like Gavi have exacerbated the crisis and left Americans more vulnerable,” Shaheen said in a statement. She urged the Senate “to swiftly adopt this legislation and ensure the United States government is fully cooperating with the WHO to reduce transmission and prevent Ebola from again reaching America’s shores.”
A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the pending legislation, but blamed the WHO for a delay in alerting the globe to the Ebola outbreak.
“Like many international organizations, the WHO has strayed from its core mission, acted contrary to US interests, and abused its institutional reputation to pursue undue political influence under the guise of scientific evidence,” the spokesperson said. “We can no longer continue to invest in an organization that is ineffective and historically hostile to necessary reforms.”
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In the accompanying letter to Rubio, which was also signed by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, the Democratic senators wrote that they were alarmed by the “uncontrolled Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda.”
They noted that more than 1,000 suspected and confirmed cases had emerged just a month after the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreak — a more rapid early escalation than during the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic.
The senators argued that the WHO “remains the body best positioned to surveil the outbreak and stand up an effective international response.”
“A fast and effective response is especially critical because the epicenter of the outbreak is in a highly volatile region where humanitarian operations and access to essential services have long been constrained by conflicts involving multiple armed groups,” they wrote.
This Ebola outbreak has already surpassed 1,000 cases and experts fear it could exceed the scale of the 2014–2016 West Africa epidemic — which killed more than 11,000 people — without a strong public health intervention.
The senators’ waiver request has precedent. The CDC Influenza Division in Atlanta remains a WHO Collaborating Center for Influenza. And even after Trump signed the order withdrawing the US from the WHO, the CDC and FDA still participated in a WHO flu vaccine meeting in February 2025.
Notable
- This week, the WHO announced two trials of experimental anti-Ebola drugs to combat the outbreak, Semafor reported.
- The French Health Ministry reported a case of Ebola from a doctor returning from the DRC on Wednesday, Reuters reported.