EBOLA in Congo: The Same Global-Health Network That Ran the Ivermectin Campaign Is Now Fighting Ebola. WTH

"Trust must be earned, it cannot be assumed. We have not always done things correctly." — WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, message to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, May 28, 2026

The Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is part of a much longer history of international disease-control campaigns across Africa. Decades before Ebola became a global emergency, many of the same regions were already the focus of massive public-health programs targeting tropical diseases such as river blindness, also known as onchocerciasis. Those programs brought together the World Health Organization, World Bank, pharmaceutical companies, governments, nonprofit organizations and international health workers.

The connections are striking. The WHO-led Onchocerciasis Control Programme began in West Africa in 1974, followed by the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control in 1995. Merck began its Mectizan Donation Program in 1987, supplying ivermectin for river blindness on an unprecedented scale. Over the following decades, international organizations developed extensive networks for delivering drugs, monitoring disease, training health workers and working with communities across Africa.

Then came Ebola. The catastrophic 2014–2016 West African Ebola epidemic transformed the disease into an international security and public-health emergency. President Barack Obama declared the outbreak a U.S. national-security priority, while the United States, WHO, CDC, military personnel, pharmaceutical companies and international aid organizations mobilized against the epidemic.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo presents an especially important case because it has experienced repeated Ebola outbreaks while also being deeply involved in decades of international tropical-disease programs. That raises an important historical question: how much institutional continuity exists between the organizations, personnel, infrastructure and public-health strategies developed during earlier campaigns such as the fight against river blindness and those later deployed against Ebola?

Trust is another central issue. During Ebola outbreaks in the Congo, health workers have confronted fear, resistance, attacks on treatment centers and communities suspicious of international health authorities. Ebola control depends heavily on cooperation: identifying cases, tracing contacts, isolating patients, conducting safe burials and administering vaccines and trea