The contracts financed Ebola screening at airports and protective equipment for health workers, and helped prevent transmission by survivors of the disease, according to a former U.S.A.I.D. official.

USAID’s initiatives to fight Ebola and other diseases have been gutted, current and former agency officials said.

Don Beyer of Virginia wasted no time taking aim at Musk for his chuckling comment about an often fatal virus that has devastating effects on the communities that experience an outbreak. “An average person who did something as incompetent as ‘accidentally cancelling Ebola prevention’ wouldn’t be applauded,