Bipartisan senators press Rubio to release $608 million in Ebola aid for East Africa

A bipartisan Senate letter delivered Thursday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio puts $608 million in congressionally-approved international family-planning funds in focus, as Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) demand action on a Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak cutting through the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had counted 3,532 confirmed cases and 1,556 deaths in the DRC as of July 29, a mortality rate of roughly 44 percent. The next milestone: a State Department decision on whether to issue a humanitarian exception for UN Population Fund clinics already operating in both countries.

The supplies and the fiscal case

Beyond the $608 million, the senators flagged $1.7 million in already-purchased family-planning supplies sitting at a storage facility in Geel, Belgium. Those supplies, which the senators indicated include condoms, hormonal contraception, post-rape care medicine, and hemorrhage medicines, face destruction if the State Department does not act. Murkowski and Shaheen framed early action as fiscally rational, noting that the total U.S. response cost is approaching $1 billion.

The pregnancy dimension sharpens the argument. The senators cited a nearly 100 percent fetal loss rate when Ebola infects pregnant women, alongside catastrophic maternal mortality risk from severe hemorrhaging. Voluntary family planning, they wrote, would allow women to prevent unplanned pregnancies and protect themselves from transmission.

Outbreak timeline and scope

The earliest known case involved a health worker in the DRC's Ituri Province who developed symptoms in late April and later died. The World Health Organization believes transmission may have begun as early as March. The WHO was alerted on May 5 after four health workers died within four days, and investigators confirmed Bundibugyo virus ten days later. Uganda's count stands at 20 confirmed cases and two deaths, per the CDC.

What to watch

The senators asked the State Department to issue a formal humanitarian exception to support the UN Population Fund's existing health clinics in Uganda and the DRC. Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department for comment; no response had been reported by publication. The $1.7 million in stored supplies in Geel represents the most immediate variable. Those goods are already purchased; a non-decision is effectively a decision to destroy them.