As Ebola flares once again, a rapid global response invites cautious hope

In the week since the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a new Ebola outbreak, health officials have set in motion a plan to distribute an experimental vaccine, logistics experts have established an airbridge to ferry responders and equipment into the epicenter, and the director-general of the World Health Organization has flown in from Geneva to take stock.

It has been an extraordinarily rapid response — and a far cry from the tragically slow reaction by the global community following the West African Ebola outbreak that began in 2014.

“I think the response so far has been impressive,” said Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health.

Inglesby said the early engagement of many partners — the