USAID will send more than $38 million to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, several of its neighboring countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) to combat Congo's ongoing Ebola outbreak, per a Wednesday press release.
The numbers that matter: WHO issued a global health warning earlier this month on the Congo's Ebola outbreak. As of July 22, there were 2,592 confirmed cases of Ebola in the region and at least 1,743 related deaths, per USAID. Last week, there were 2,428 confirmed cases and 1,604 confirmed deaths.
The Senate is ready to start moving forward with a bipartisan bill to lower the cost of prescription drugs, after Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released a detailed outline of the proposal this morning. The Finance Committee will debate the bill Thursday.
What's next: The Senate package would redesign Medicare's drug benefit and allow new payment models in Medicaid, among other changes. And it puts drug prices squarely at the center of Congress' fall agenda: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's top health care aide said yesterday that House Democrats will introduce their own bill after the August recess.
The Indian Health Service remains deeply troubled, according to two new reports released yesterday from the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General.
Why it matters: The IHS is responsible for more than 2 million Native Americans — a population that tends to need a lot of care, much of it specialized. Yet the IHS has been beset for years by underfunding and mismanagement.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday confirmed another 25 cases of measles last week, with Ohio and Alaska now reporting their first 2019 infections.
Why it matters: America is continuing its trek toward losing the "measles elimination status" it's had since 2000, with the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1992.
