Bipartisan Senators Push Foreign Aid Release As Deadly Outbreak Devastates African Region

Liberty Check

• Two senators from opposite parties unite to pressure State Department on emergency health crisis affecting thousands in Africa
• Hundreds of millions in taxpayer-funded aid and supplies sitting idle while deadly virus spreads across East Africa
• Critical medical supplies worth millions face potential destruction if not deployed immediately to combat outbreak

Two senators from opposite sides of the aisle are joining forces to push the State Department into action on a growing health crisis overseas. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., are calling on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to release hundreds of millions of dollars in aid designated for women and infants affected by an Ebola outbreak spreading through East Africa.

In a letter delivered to Rubio on Thursday, the bipartisan pair urged immediate distribution of $608 million in congressionally-approved international family-planning funds. They also called for the release of $1.7 million worth of family-planning supplies that have already been purchased but remain in storage.

Those supplies — including condoms, hormonal contraception, post-rape care medicine and hemorrhage treatments — are currently sitting in a facility in Geel, Belgium, according to the senators’ letter. If the supplies aren’t deployed soon, they face destruction, the lawmakers warned.

“Ebola during pregnancy is catastrophic, with a nearly 100 percent fetal loss rate and catastrophic material mortality risk due to severe hemorrhaging,” the lawmakers wrote.

“By providing women with the option to voluntarily prevent unplanned pregnancies and to protect themselves from transmission of the virus and have access to clinics, the United States can prevent further deaths of women and the cruel and certain death of any fetus exposed to the virus,” they added.

The senators are also requesting a “humanitarian exception” to support United Nations Population Fund health clinics operating in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the two countries at the center of the outbreak.

The numbers paint a grim picture. As of July 29, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed 3,532 Ebola cases in the DRC with 1,556 deaths — a mortality rate hovering around 44 percent. In neighboring Uganda, authorities have documented 20 confirmed cases and two deaths.

Murkowski and Shaheen emphasized the urgency of the situation, telling the State Department that the virus’s rapid spread “leaves no time for delay in providing all possible interventions to save lives.”

“The cost of [the] United States response is approaching $1 billion,” they wrote.

“Investment now in voluntary family planning is fiscally rational in addition to being morally urgent.”

The State Department has not yet responded to requests for comment on the senators’ letter.

The current outbreak began with 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 started as early as March, though the outbreak wasn’t officially recognized until May.

WHO officials were first alerted on May 5 after four health workers died within a four-day span. Investigators confirmed on May 15 that the illness was caused by Bundibugyo virus, a particularly deadly form of Ebola.

Americans deserve better stewardship of taxpayer resources in addressing global health crises.