Imagine a firefighter battling a blaze while the sprinkler system emits gasoline. This is the current state of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

So far, over 1,600 people have died from the virus and thousands more have been infected. While this outbreak is not yet at the scale of the last Ebola crisis that claimed more than 11,000 lives, it has the potential to be even deadlier.

With each passing day, the virus keeps spreading. This week, the first case of Ebola was discovered in Goma, a transportation hub on the border of Rwanda. In order to keep pace with the virus, the United States and the international community must start treating this outbreak like the crisis it is.

In 2014, I sat on the National Security Council and helped lead the United States’ Ebola response. At the time, I thought the Ebola outbreak was the most terrifying public health emergency that I would ever witness in my lifetime. It turns out that I was wrong.

The challenges of t..