The Bundibugyo Outbreak is exposing the world’s preparedness gap — again

The rapidly escalating Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is more than a regional health emergency. It is another stress test of whether the world has genuinely learned anything from COVID-19. So far, the signs are mixed. The outbreak, now among the largest Filovirus epidemics on record, has triggered emergency declarations from both the WHO and the Africa CDC. Yet despite decades of Ebola research, there is still no licensed vaccine for Bundibugyo ebolavirus. The scientific community is once again racing against time after an outbreak has already begun. Faster science, slower systems CEPI’s rapid mobilization of three vaccine candidates from IAVI, Moderna, and the University of Oxford demonstrates how much faster outbreak response systems have become. Platform technologies such as mRNA, VSV, and ChAdOx1 now allow vaccine development efforts to begin within days rather than years. But speed alone is not preparedness. The deeper issue exposed by the...