EbolaWHO incapable of effective response to Ebola outbreak-like health crises
The World Health Organization (WHO) does not have the capacity and internal culture to launch and manage an effective response to an epidemic such as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, according to a scathing WHO-commissioned report, which also blames governments for not offering more support for the organization. The report says the organization was too slow in its response to the Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 11,000 people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) does not have the capacity and internal culture to launch and manage an effective response to an epidemic such as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, according to a scathing report, which also blames governments for not offering more support for the organization.
The panel of experts writing the WHO-commissioned report was led by Dame Barbara Stocking, a former head of Oxfam.
The report says the organization was too slow in its response to the Ebola epidemic and that it was under-funded. More than 11,000 people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola, which began spreading in late 2013.
The panel stresses that it believes examining the lessons which should be drawn from the response to the Ebola outbreak is a defining moment for the health of the global community. “WHO must reestablish its preeminence as the guardian of global public health; this will require significant changes throughout WHO with the understanding that this includes both the secretariat and the member states.”
The panel says that at each of its three levels, the secretariat must undergo significant transformation in order to better perform its core function of protecting global health. For their part, member states must provide, at their highest political levels, the required political and financial support to WHO. While WHO has already accepted the need for transformation of its organizational culture and delivery, it will need to be held accountable to ensure that this transformation is achieved, the panel notes.
The report says that the Ebola crisis not only exposed organizational failings in the functioning of WHO, but it also demonstrated shortcomings in the International Health Regulations (2005). “If the world is to successfully manage the health threats, especially infectious diseases that can affect us all, then the Regulations need to be strengthened,” the panel says. “We ask that the full Review Committee under the International Health Regulations (2005) to examine the role of the Regulations in the Ebola outbreak (the IHR Review Committee for Ebola), which follows our Panel, consider and take forward the implementation of our recommendations.”
The panel states that had the recommendations for revision made in 2011 by the Review Committee in relation to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 been implemented, the global community would have been in a far better position to face the Ebola crisis. “The world simply cannot afford another period of inaction until the next health crisis,” the report says.
