Hours after Elon Musk reassured Cabinet members on Wednesday that efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in Uganda had only been “accidentally canceled very briefly,” the Trump administration terminated at least four of the five contracts for Ebola-related work in that country.
The four canceled contracts were a tiny fraction of the 10,000 contracts and grants at the United States Agency for International Development and the State Department that the Trump administration ended on Wednesday.
But they were important: Since January, Uganda has experienced a serious Ebola outbreak, from which the country is only just emerging. The contracts funded Ebola screening at airports and protective equipment for health workers, and helped prevent transmission by survivors of the disease, according to a former U.S.A.I.D. official.
Mr. Musk told cabinet members that the administration had “restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.” But his statement was inaccurate, according to two former U.S.A.I.D. officials with knowledge of the situation in Uganda. (The officials asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.)
In theory, waivers allowed for some work to continue on containing pathogens like Ebola, Marburg and mpox, as well as preparedness for bird flu. But very little money had actually been delivered.
Few organizations providing those services had the financial reserves to continue, and even fewer trusted that they would be reimbursed.