The next Influenza pandemic could be on the horizon as 2018 reaches its halfway mark, and there is much indicating that the Trump Administration is not prepared for it. Over 1,000 cases of H7N9, more commonly known as Avian influenza, have been detected in China since June 2018, and two cases have already been reported in Canada. Though the risk of human-to-human transmission of this strain of H7N9 is currently low, the probability that mutations will make human-to-human transmission possible and rapid is still present. Given that the Trump Administration has decided to minimize CDC funding rather than maintain it, Americans may be more vulnerable to future outbreaks.
Perhaps the most terrifying pandemic in recent years was the outbreak of Ebola, a virus that killed over 11,000 people in 21 months. Americans saw it arrive on their doorsteps as eight infected citizens were flown in for treatment in Texas. Though all eight survived, a ninth victim treated in Texas, a Liberian visiting the states, passed away from Ebola on Oct. 8, 2014. The small scare that year was a reminder that the world is inevitably connected from corner to corner, leaving diseases with nearly unlimited stomping grounds. Thus, via the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, Congress approved a $1.77 billion budget to be used over a span of five years. A significant portion of that budget was designed to work overseas in hot spots where deadly diseases can be found at the source. One of those hot spots is China, where the latest H7N9 virus originated.
Now, as H7N9 comes to the surface with a fresh wave of panic, the budget created by Congress in 2015 has come under the spotlight. It is projected to run dry in 2019, and health experts do not anticipate receiving renewed funding going forward. An extra $600 million has served to help doctors and volunteers abroad prevent and treat harmful infectious diseases in hot spots for the last four years. Additionally, $120 million dedicated to the Global Health Security Agenda, which focuses on early disease detection, has been vital to prevention initiatives. The Trump Administration was faced with either renewing the funding or taking a chance that it will not be needed, and the 2019 budget already indicates that Trump chose the former option. Without such funding, the CDC cannot perform in many of the areas it serves, including Sierra Leone and Guinea, two countries where Ebola spread far and wide. The CDC has announced that, given the current budget discussions, it will likely be downsizing by as much as 80 percent and pulling out of 39 countries. Reportedly, it decided to only peripherally monitor countries like China, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo going forward.
Non-profit workers and health administrators are worried that institutions and programs built to prevent pandemics in hot spots will fall into disrepair without continuous funding. Both here and abroad, many preventative measures will simply be too expensive to sustain. The CDC is responsible for supporting a wide range of resources: medical researchers require funding to engineer vaccines and treatments; patients who succumb to the disease must be hospitalized and quarantined; doctors must travel safely abroad to the sources of each disease; public announcements must be circulated; and medication must be generated and administered. Though the United States has a highly-developed medical community that can be trained and prepared to handle a pandemic, the source of the disease often exists in third-world countries where health facilities are few and destitute. Though many structures may have been built over the last four years, managers must maintain them and continue to train new workers in preparation for a new outbreak.
Now, with the threat of Ebola returning to the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the ninth time and a new Avian Influenza virus spreading to North America, the Trump Administration has asked to roll back some of the funding established in 2015. Though the impact of H7N9 has not yet been seen in the states, history shows that a flu virus can be remarkably devastating. The Spanish Flu, which raged across continents from 1918-1919, killed more than twice as many people as the First World War in a quarter of the time. 50 million casualties suffered slow hemorrhages or rapid pulmonary edema with little warning. Only time will determine the point at which the Trump Administration will reconsider the importance of preventative funding and allow successful work to continue.