Murkowski and Shaheen Press Rubio to Release $608 Million in Family Planning Aid as DRC Ebola Death Toll Hits 1,556

Since the CDC's July 29 tally of 3,532 Ebola cases and 1,556 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo, roughly a 44% mortality rate, two senators from opposite parties are trying to force the State Department's hand on aid that's been sitting frozen.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday, July 30, according to the committee's own release dated July 31. Fox News and Semafor both obtained and reported on the letter.

The ask has three parts. First, release $608 million in international family-planning funds already appropriated by Congress in the fiscal year 2026 budget. Second, distribute $1.7 million worth of contraceptive and maternal health supplies currently stored in a warehouse in Geel, Belgium, which the senators say will otherwise be destroyed. Third, grant a "humanitarian exception" so the UN Population Fund can restart reproductive health programming in the DRC and Uganda.

That third ask runs straight into a policy the Trump administration already made. President Trump withdrew the U.S. from UNFPA earlier this year, according to Semafor, part of a broader rollback of family-planning assistance abroad. The senators aren't asking the administration to reverse that decision. They're asking for a carve-out specific to the Ebola response.

Why contraception is part of an Ebola letter

Ebola infection during pregnancy carries what the senators call a nearly 100% fetal loss rate and a severe maternal hemorrhage risk, according to the letter as quoted by Fox News, KOTA Radio, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Semafor. A woman who avoids exposure to the virus by not becoming pregnant, or who has access to a clinic offering post-rape care and anti-hemorrhage medicine, has a materially better shot at survival in an active outbreak zone.

The senators cite a historical precedent for the concern. During the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, maternal mortality rose an estimated 75% as women avoided clinics out of fear of catching the virus, Semafor reported. The worry now is a repeat, compounded by conflict.

According to the committee's release, the senators specifically flagged that fighting and displacement in Ituri and North Kivu provinces are driving increases in gender-based and sexual violence and "transactional and survival sex," which they argue is accelerating both the humanitarian crisis and viral transmission.

Semafor cited a UNFPA regional situation report showing maternal deaths in Ituri province, the outbreak's epicenter, roughly doubled from an average of 3.1 to 6.2 per week. UNFPA also says it faces a $20.8 million funding gap, with the Congo response still missing 91% of its stated requirements, per Semafor.

The scale of the numbers

The committee's release, dated July 31, cited "more than 2,000 confirmed cases and 796 confirmed deaths" in the DRC "as of this week." That's noticeably lower than the CDC's July 29 figure of 3,532 cases and 1,556 deaths cited by Fox News and KOTA Radio. The discrepancy likely reflects different reporting windows or data sources between the Senate committee's release and the CDC's own count, and it's a reminder that outbreak numbers in an active, displacement-heavy conflict zone are moving targets, not fixed totals.

In neighboring Uganda, the CDC reported 20 confirmed cases and two deaths as of July 29.

The senators put the total U.S. response cost at "approaching $1 billion" and argue the family-planning investment is cheap by comparison. "Investment now in voluntary family planning is fiscally rational in addition to being morally urgent," they wrote.

What the administration hasn't said

Fox News reported it reached out to the State Department for comment and did not report receiving a response as of publication. No public statement from Secretary Rubio or the State Department addressing the letter's specific requests appears in any of the available reporting.

That leaves the core policy tension unresolved. The Trump administration's broader position, pulling out of UNFPA and freezing family-planning funding streams, reflects a longstanding conservative position that U.S. taxpayer dollars shouldn't flow to international reproductive health organizations that also provide or refer for abortion services, a policy fight that predates this outbreak by decades under both parties. Critics of that freeze, including these two senators, argue an active hemorrhagic fever outbreak with a near-total fetal loss rate for infected pregnant women is exactly the kind of humanitarian exception the policy should allow for.

Whoever is right on the broader funding fight, the immediate and narrower question is whether $1.7 million in already-purchased supplies sitting in a Belgian warehouse gets shipped to the DRC or destroyed. Neither the State Department's timeline for a decision nor its response to the senators' letter had been made public as of this writing.