FORBES | Currently in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 25 people are suspected to have already died from Ebola in the Equateur province. Four cases have reached the provincial capital of Mbandaka, prompting fears that DRC is on the cusp of an urban epidemic.

A few years ago, in the 2014 West African Ebola epidemic, outbreaks in urban areas quickly spread to 10 countries, with a case showing up as far away as Dallas, Texas. There was no vaccine available then, and laboratory confirmation of diagnosis took three months. More than 28,600 people were infected and 11,000 died.

Thankfully, today a safe and highly effective vaccine was deployed within 10 days of the outbreak, a vaccine developed thanks to a United States anti-terrorism project that started—for me—with white powder in a Senate office.

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