Emergency response to Ebola outbreak lacks leadership, Canadian aid official says

[Pathfinder]

Emergency response to Ebola outbreak lacks leadership, Canadian aid official says

By:Jennifer Yang Global health reporter, Published on Wed Aug 20 2014

Five months have passed since the Ebola virus was first confirmed in West Africa ? but according to a top aid official, the emergency response is still leaderless and suffering from a kind of ?Ebola psychosis? that has made the global community reluctant to join the front-line fight.
...
The Canadian physician, who recently returned from a 10-day tour of the worst-hit countries, said there is a ?vacuum? of leadership in the outbreak response, which still lacks a co-ordinated plan at the top.

?This is the biggest Ebola epidemic of modern times ? (but) no one has somehow gained control,? said Liu in a phone interview from Montreal.

?The ministries of health and governments of each country have a responsibility, but the other thing is that somehow the WHO needs to step up.

?They keep telling me, ?We?re not an emergency response organization.? I?m sorry but you?re the World Health Organization; you need to step up to that role because you have the legitimacy and the authority to do that.?
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Full text:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2...ing_emergency_response_aid_official_says.html

 

[theforeigner]

Re: Emergency response to Ebola outbreak lacks leadership, Canadian aid official says

I have the deepest respect and admiration for Dr. Joanne Liu, who, besides working really hard in the areas plagued by Ebola, she have the guts to straight forward speak the truth and tell the WHO etc. leaderships that they are NOT doing their job :applause::tiphat:

It is just unbelievable that WHO etc. haven't taken proper action, and I just wonder what their excuse is for not living up to their responsibilities

 

[Vibrant62]

Re: Emergency response to Ebola outbreak lacks leadership, Canadian aid official says

Answer (in my opinion): WHO has become primarily a political, lobbying and strategic health organisation. 'On the ground' activities that are supposed to enact agreed WHO health objectives are now directed to NGOs and charities for execution, but only when a health project has been directly funded elsewhere - rather than being executed by 'in house' WHO teams. These do not exist now, if they ever did. The trouble is that all the NGOs and charities that are willing to respond are already in situ and at full stretch.

The emperor has no clothes. WHO doesnt have the teams or staff to send; it depends on individual member states to supply these individuals to them who can then go and work under the WHO banner. WHO cannot 'order' countries to send them health teams to help and assist (perhaps it should have the power to do so in an emergency). It can only ask countries to act or help, by communicating the nature of the emergency.

Perhaps we need to be asking why individual countries are not doing more to assist by sending personnel in. WHO may feel it can't: its mandate depends on the goodwill of member states to get anything done at all. But perhaps the time is here when it needs to start 'naming and shaming'...

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Emergency response to Ebola outbreak lacks leadership, Canadian aid official says

Translation Google


Ebola: "everything is gathered for that to get carried away" (co-discoverer of the virus)

08/26/2014 8:37 GMT

PARIS, August 26, 2014 (AFP) - Belgian Professor Peter Piot co-discovered of the Ebola virus in 1976, said Tuesday that everything was set for the epidemic to "get carried away" and regretted "the extraordinary slowness" of the response of the World health Organization (WHO), in an interview with french daily Liberation.

"Never has there been an outbreak of this magnitude (...) For six months we are seeing what we could call a perfect storm + +. Everything comes together for this to get carried away," warned Dr. Piot.

The epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which has claimed nearly 1,500 deaths, "explodes in countries where health services do not work, ravaged by decades of war. Besides, people radically distrust authorities " has he raised in the French daily. "We must restore trust.. Nothing can be done in an epidemic like Ebola without trust."

The UN coordinator against Ebola, Dr. David Nabarro, had already warned Monday that the fight against the epidemic was a "war" that could take six months.

Dr. Piot also regretted "the extraordinary slowness" of institutions. "WHO has awakened in July" when the alert was launched at the beginning of March and that the epidemic had started in December 2013 "She now takes on the leadership, but it is late, "he notes.

In mid-August, experts convened by WHO found "ethical" to provide experimental drugs to patients with side effects not yet measured.

"The least we can do is to make these products available to countries affected," he added.

http://aidnews.org/world-ebola-tout-est-reuni-pour-que-cela-semballe-codecouvreur-du-virus/