Re: WHO/UN Press Conference Link (transcript to follow)
http://who.int/mediacentre/multimedia/ebola_briefing/en/
mp3:
http://terrance.who.int/mediacentre/presser/WHO-RUSH_Ebola_outbreak_presser_14OCT2014.mp3?ua=1
the pdf transcript is now available :
http://who.int/entity/mediacentre/multimedia/vpc-14-october-2014.pdf?ua=1
Chan speech :
http://who.int/dg/speeches/2014/regional-committee-western-pacific/en/
WHO Director-General’s speech to the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific
Dr Margaret Chan
Director-General of the World Health Organization
(delivered in her absence by Ian Smith, Executive Director of the Director-General's Office)
Keynote address to the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, Sixty-fifth session
Manila, Philippines
13 October 2014
Mr Chairman, Excellencies, honourable ministers, distinguished delegates, Dr Shin, ladies and gentlemen,
The Director-General sends you her best wishes for a productive session. She is fully occupied with
coordinating the international response to what is unquestionably the most severe acute public health
emergency in modern times.
## this is just Ian Smith's opinion or also Chan's ? What about AIDS
I am delivering her messages to you, in the words she wanted to use.
I begin here.
These days, people from WHO are expected to say something about the Ebola outbreak that is ravaging
parts of West Africa. I will do so as well.
In my long career in public health, which includes managing the H5N1 and SARS outbreaks in Hong Kong,
and managing the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic at WHO, I have never before seen a health event attract
such a high level of international media coverage, day after day after day. I have never seen a health event
strike such fear and terror, well beyond the affected countries.
## bird flu ?!?
I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor
countries. I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure.
All of this was confirmed on 18 September when the UN Security Council convened an unprecedented
emergency session to address what has moved from a public health crisis to threaten international peace
and security.
I will not give you the latest figures for cases and deaths, as the number of new cases is now rising
exponentially in the three hardest-hit countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
## this is not what the figures given by WHO on the WHO-website show
But I will use the outbreak to show how some messages, some key arguments that WHO has been making
for decades, are now falling on receptive ears.
First, the outbreak spotlights the dangers of the world’s growing social and economic inequalities. The rich
get the best care. The poor are left to die.
## but is this rich-poor inequality growing ? I think the gap is slowly closing over time, as life expectancy
## in poor countries increases more than in rich countries
Second, rumours and panic are spreading faster than the virus. And this costs money.
Ebola sparks nearly universal fear. Fear vastly amplifies social disruption and economic losses well beyond
the outbreak zones.
The World Bank estimates that 90% of economic losses during any [##some ?] outbreak arise from the uncoordinated
and irrational efforts of the public to avoid infection.
Third, when a deadly and dreaded virus hits the destitute and spirals out of control, the whole world is put at
risk.
Our 21st century societies are interconnected, interdependent, and electronically wired together as never
before.
Fourth, decades of neglect of fundamental health systems and services mean that a shock, like an extreme
weather event in a changing climate, armed conflict, or a disease run wild, can bring a fragile country to its
knees.
In the simplest terms, this outbreak shows how one of the deadliest pathogens on earth can exploit any
weakness in the health infrastructure, be it inadequate numbers of health care staff or the virtual absence of
isolation wards and intensive care facilities throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa.
You cannot build these systems up during a crisis. Instead, they collapse.
### let's see. We are trying it now ...
A dysfunctional health system means greatly reduced population resilience to the range of shocks that our
world is delivering, with ever greater frequency and force.
We know that higher numbers of deaths from other causes are occurring, whether from malaria and other
infectious diseases, or limited capacity for safe childbirth.
Here is one of the few things WHO is glad to see.
When presidents and prime ministers in non-affected countries make statements about Ebola, they rightly
attribute the outbreak’s unprecedented spread and severity to the “failure to put basic public health
infrastructures in place.”
## there must be other things. And be it just bad luck. But we had these outbreaks before
## when the health-systems were also bad
Fifth, Ebola emerged nearly 40 years ago. Why are clinicians still empty-handed, with no vaccines and no
cure? Because Ebola has been, historically, geographically confined to poor African nations.
The R&D incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets
that cannot pay.
## and because outbreaks had been small in the past. There are lots of other pathogens with no vaccine
We have been trying to make this issue visible for many years, most recently through the deliberations of the
Consultative Expert Working Group on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination.
Finally, the world is ill-prepared to respond to any severe, sustained, and threatening public health
emergency.
This statement may sound familiar to some of you, as it was one of the main conclusions of the IHR Review
Committee convened to assess the response to the 2009 influenza pandemic.
The Ebola outbreak proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this conclusion was spot on.
So what does all this tell us? Fundamentally, we have the priorities right, and these priorities finally have high
visibility and high-level political support.
They underscore how right WHO and its Regional Offices have been in arguing for the strengthening of basic
public health infrastructures, aiming for universal health coverage, and recognizing the urgent need to
strengthen IHR core capacities.
We must continue along these appropriate, and now widely embraced paths to better health and stronger
resilience for all.
Thank you.
