Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
MSF President urges UN General Assembly to act NOW
High-level Meeting on Response to the Ebola Disease Outbreak
25 September 2014
Remarks by Dr. Joanne Liu, international president, M?decins Sans Fronti?res
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
Generous pledges of aid and unprecedented UN resolutions are very welcome. But they will mean little, unless they are translated into immediate action.
The reality on the ground today is this: the promised surge has not yet delivered.
The sick are desperate, their families and caregivers are angry, and aid workers are exhausted. Maintaining quality of care is an extreme challenge.
Fear and panic have set in, as infection rates double every three weeks. Mounting numbers are dying of other diseases, like malaria, because health systems have collapsed.
Without you, we fall further behind the epidemic?s deadly trajectory. Today, Ebola is winning.
Our 150-bed facility in Monrovia opens for just thirty minutes each morning. Only a few people are admitted ? to fill beds made empty by those who died overnight.
The sick continue to be turned away, only to return home and spread the virus among loved ones and neighbors.
The isolation centers you have promised must be established NOW.
And other countries must not let a few states carry the load. Complacency is a worse enemy than the virus.
More: MSF
High-level Meeting on Response to the Ebola Disease Outbreak
25 September 2014
Remarks by Dr. Joanne Liu, international president, M?decins Sans Fronti?res
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
Generous pledges of aid and unprecedented UN resolutions are very welcome. But they will mean little, unless they are translated into immediate action.
The reality on the ground today is this: the promised surge has not yet delivered.
The sick are desperate, their families and caregivers are angry, and aid workers are exhausted. Maintaining quality of care is an extreme challenge.
Fear and panic have set in, as infection rates double every three weeks. Mounting numbers are dying of other diseases, like malaria, because health systems have collapsed.
Without you, we fall further behind the epidemic?s deadly trajectory. Today, Ebola is winning.
Our 150-bed facility in Monrovia opens for just thirty minutes each morning. Only a few people are admitted ? to fill beds made empty by those who died overnight.
The sick continue to be turned away, only to return home and spread the virus among loved ones and neighbors.
The isolation centers you have promised must be established NOW.
And other countries must not let a few states carry the load. Complacency is a worse enemy than the virus.
More: MSF