As athletes and millions of fans from all over the world prepare for the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off next week, global health officials are facing a difficult epidemic prevention test: strictly preventing the spread of various infectious diseases. For the first time, this tournament is jointly hosted by 16 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The number of participating teams has expanded to 48, making it the largest in the history of the World Cup. At the time of preparations for the event, there was an Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda, which the World Health Organization has classified asPublic health emergency of international concern.
On May 21, 2026, World Cup promotional signs were hung at the Columbus Circle shopping mall in New York, the United States.
Although the outbreak is pending overseas, infectious disease experts told CNBC that the chance of widespread Ebola spread during the World Cup is low. Even though key federal public health agencies in the United States have experienced massive budget cuts and the United States withdrew from the WHO during the Trump administration, the emergency response reserves of local health departments and medical institutions are still sufficient.
Dr. Shruti Gohil, deputy director of epidemiology and infection prevention at the University of California, Irvine: "I have limited concerns about Ebola and hantaviruses. The risk is not completely zero, but the probability is extremely low. This type of virus is not easily transmitted from person to person."
Experts point out that compared with Ebola, transnational tourists who travel to multiple venues and cities within a few days are more likely to contribute to the outbreak of highly contagious diseases. This type of disease is the number one epidemic prevention difficulty in large-scale events this summer.
The primary risk is measles, one of the most contagious infectious diseases in the world, followed by respiratory viruses such as COVID-19 and influenza. In 2025, confirmed cases of measles in the United States hit a multi-decade high, with vaccine hesitancy and declining vaccination rates among the population being important factors. Other experts reminded that dengue fever and other arboviruses, high temperature heat stroke, and food-borne diseases are also health risks that cannot be ignored during the competition.
Across the United States, various regions in the United States are relying on mature epidemic prevention projects such as sewage monitoring and adding a variety of new disease tracking methods to prepare for the World Cup. The entire monitoring system will undergo its first practical test when the tournament kicks off on June 11. Public health officials say that all preparations are in place.
Dr. Teresa Tran, Director of the Houston City Health Department: "Public health is like an invisible protective barrier. Building this all-weather protective network requires massive investment. We work silently to allow fans to watch the game with peace of mind and enjoy complete health protection when in the stadium. We are very proud of this epidemic prevention system, and all our staff are working hard to prepare for this event day after day."
Risk of local transmission of Ebola limited
On June 2, 2026, at the Muniji Ebola Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Congo, Médecins Sans Frontières medical staff wearing full protective equipment inspected patients in the quarantine red zone, performed diagnosis and treatment care, and ensured disinfection of the hospital area. On the same day, an airport dedicated for humanitarian relief in Congo reopened, and the number of local suspected cases dropped.
WHO data shows that more than 260 cases of Ebola have been confirmed in Congo and Uganda, with more than 1,100 suspected cases to be investigated. The current round of epidemic of Bandibugyo subtype Ebola has a high fatality rate, and there are currently no approved specific drugs and corresponding vaccines. But as of Wednesday, there were no confirmed cases of Ebola in the United States.
Amesh Adalja, a visiting associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explained: Ebola can only be transmitted through close contact with the body fluids and blood of infected patients. The infected people's physical condition is extremely poor after they become ill. Most of them stay at home or are hospitalized for treatment, and rarely go to large gathering places.
"It is not a respiratory tract virus and will not spread in dense crowds without body fluid contact. Therefore, it is objectively difficult to threaten this World Cup."
However, the U.S. federal and local health departments are still implementing a full set of Ebola prevention and control plans:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has upgraded entry control. Inbound travelers who have visited Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan in the past 21 days must enter through designated ports in Atlanta, Houston, New York, and Washington, D.C., and undergo unified entry health screening upon landing. Entry verification includes itinerary inquiries, temperature checks, and retention of contact information, and subsequent follow-up by the local health department; relevant personnel must also complete a complete 21-day incubation period health monitoring, not just inspection on the day of landing.
Mavia Jones, director of the Health Department of Kansas City (the city hosting the World Cup), said that the entry information of people from overseas epidemic areas will be simultaneously pushed to the local health department to track their health status throughout the process.
Dallas County, Texas, is hosting the World Cup. The local health department has collaborated with emergency agencies and designated hospitals to designate treatment hospitals, improve hospital infection procedures, and prepare special transport vehicles to ensure that passengers with suspected symptoms can be safely sent to the hospital. The local government has also reviewed the experience of dealing with Ebola in Dallas in 2014 and carried out special training for medical staff, focusing on strengthening practical capabilities such as travel history inquiries, symptom identification, patient isolation and transportation, close contact tracking, and standardized use of protective equipment. County Health Director Phil Huang said frankly that local past epidemic prevention experience has made Ebola a key disease for local prevention.
FIFA said in a statement that it continues to monitor the dynamics of the Ebola epidemic, coordinates with the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico to ensure the safety of the event, and specifically sends travel risk warnings to ticket-holding fans in Congo, South Sudan and Uganda.
Measles and respiratory diseases become focus of epidemic prevention
James Garrow, communications director for the Philadelphia Health Department, said,Measles is the number one hidden danger in epidemic prevention at this World Cup, highly contagious. "Measles outbreaks have occurred in many countries around the world. Passengers sharing the same plane for just one or two hours may cause the spread of the virus across regions." Philadelphia, as the host city, focuses on strengthening medical and nursing staff's rapid measles screening and cross-department joint prevention and response capabilities; multinational tourists travel to many places in a short period of time, which greatly increases the probability of cross-regional spread of the virus.
U.S. disease control data: More than 2,100 cases of measles were diagnosed in the United States in 2025, a new high since 1991. A total of 48 outbreaks occurred in 45 administrative regions across the United States (only 16 in 2024). The United States declared the elimination of local measles as early as 2000, but widespread vaccine rumors and declining vaccination rates have led to a rebound in cases; last year, more than 93% of confirmed patients had not been vaccinated or had unknown vaccination history.
Tran, director of Houston Health Care, added that against the backdrop of declining vaccine coverage across the United States, the risk of the spread of airborne respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 and influenza has increased simultaneously: "Relying on the airborne characteristics of droplets, this type of virus poses a much greater public health threat than Ebola. Houston's resident epidemiology team monitors all types of infectious diseases that can be prevented by vaccines and initiates close contact tracking at any time."
Monica Roy, deputy health director of Santa Clara County, California (a suburb of San Francisco that hosts the event), mentioned that norovirus, various food-borne diseases, heat stroke, and sexually transmitted diseases are also included in the event prevention and control list; the local government strictly checks the business licenses of all catering vendors around the event. Houston has established a certified health inspection team to deal with mass food poisoning at any time; combined with the local high-humidity climate, it has carried out large-scale science popularization on high temperature and heat stroke prevention.
Upgrading the infectious disease surveillance system across the region
Dr. Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Security at Georgetown University, said that combined with the reduction of public health funding in the United States, the layoff of about 10% of CDC personnel by the Trump administration in early 2025, and the withdrawal of the United States from the WHO, the epidemic prevention challenges of this World Cup are more complex, and the transnational epidemic information exchange mechanism is under pressure. Currently, two key positions, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and director of the Military Medical Bureau, have been vacant for a long time, which directly affects the overall planning and dispatch of public health emergencies across the country.
Even as funding and manpower have shrunk, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still relies on the White House World Cup Task Force to coordinate national epidemic prevention and connect with the health departments and partner agencies of host cities. The exclusive World Cup epidemic data dashboard has entered the final stage of debugging, making it easier for states to check global infectious disease trends in real time.
In order to fill the gap in epidemic prevention resources, Katz took the lead in establishing the Health and Safety Operations Center in May (affiliated with the National Health Resilience Center jointly established by Georgetown University and Medesta Health). Since this week, it has pushed global epidemic alerts to hundreds of local health departments, federal agencies, event organizing committees, and hospital emergency departments across the United States every day. The center also participated in daily online meetings of the Pan American Health Organization (WHO's American branch) to synchronize epidemic data in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Localized monitoring and upgrades implemented in each host city:
Wastewater epidemiological surveillance: Dallas has expanded sewage sampling points to cover the entire county, and added metagenomic sequencing technology to comprehensively detect bacteria, viruses, and fungi from sewage, breaking through the limitations of single pathogen screening; at the same time, it has strengthened mosquito monitoring, focusing on detecting imported vector-borne infectious diseases such as dengue fever, chikungunya fever, and Zika, in addition to the locally prevalent West Nile virus.
Mobile testing laboratory: Philadelphia has launched a new vehicle-mounted mobile inspection cabin to complete sample testing on the spot, eliminating the need to send specimens across regions for inspection and strengthening testing capabilities in remote areas.
Margaret Aldrich, a pediatric epidemiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center, summarized: "In response to highly lethal infectious diseases, the existing epidemic prevention system in the United States has reached a record high in terms of completeness. Health departments in various places continue to stick to the front line, and their daily work is unknown. This is exactly the characteristic of the public health industry."