Ebola continues to ravage eastern Congo, slowly spreading from isolated river villages to district towns and soon perhaps to Goma, with a million people, Congo’s sixth largest city. Already the second largest Ebola outbreak in history, the situation may soon get much worse. Ignorance, conspiracy theories, and poor governance makes the existence of a new vaccine irrelevant if it cannot get to those who need it in time.
It’s easy to write off the outbreak. Congo is hardly an American national interest, and Ebola outbreaks are not infrequent in tropical zones in Africa. That said, the past decades’ globalization raises exponential risks. Close to a half million Congolese traveled by air in 2015. Poor air infrastructure in Africa makes it more likely that travelers will transit through large African cities like Addis Ababa, Casablanca, or Johannesburg, or European hubs.
