W.H.O. Promises Reform After Criticism Over Ebola Response
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Version 0 of 1. After criticism that it was slow and ineffective in the crucial early months of the Ebola crisis, the World Health Organization said Monday that it would overhaul the way it deals with epidemics. “The world, including W.H.O., is ill prepared for a large and sustained disease outbreak,” the organization said in a statement by Dr. Margaret Chan, its director general, and by its deputy director and regional directors. Amid an overall contraction of the organization’s budget in recent years, there have been sharp cuts to its outbreak and emergency response departments. In the statement, Dr. Chan and her colleagues said that trend would be reversed. “We commit to expanding our core staff working on diseases with outbreak potential and health emergencies, so we will have skilled staff always available,” the statement said. A new reserve force of certified staff members will be created to tackle crises, the statement said, making use of a new outbreak contingency fund and a new system for managing the organization’s efforts in the field. The statement said the health organization would also try to build up more expertise in community engagement, “informed by anthropology and other social sciences.” More than 10,000 people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have died of Ebola in the current outbreak, which has infected more than 25,000 people since December 2013, according to the agency. Critics have said the W.H.O. was slow to mobilize, had difficulty with coordination and ran into significant problems with public mistrust in the affected countries. The statement said the organization favored stronger international health regulations that would require member countries to prepare for outbreaks, and a new system to independently verify whether countries were in compliance. Though it was made public on Monday, the statement was dated April 16. A spokesman for the organization said it had emerged from a regular meeting of its top policy makers. Experts said that although the statement recognized a need for change at the highest level of the organization, drafting concrete plans was harder and had only just begun. The organization’s executive board, made up of representatives of 34 member states, issued a unanimous resolution in January calling on the W.H.O. to improve its capacity to detect, and respond effectively to, outbreaks and other health emergencies. In March, Dr. Chan named a panel of outside experts to review the organization’s response to Ebola. That panel is still at work. The top decision-making body at the agency, the assembly of representatives of its 194 member countries, is scheduled to meet next month in an annual session that includes final approval of the agency’s proposed budget. Since the Ebola outbreak revealed weaknesses at the agency, proposals have been circulated to set up a new body to take over parts of its core mission, including crisis response. The first version of the statement released to reporters on Monday included a response to those proposals. “Some have said the world needs a new organization to be created,” it said. “We agree, and we want W.H.O. to be that organization.” An hour later, though, that version was replaced with a “correct” version that omitted those sentences, without explanation. Also missing from the final version was perhaps the most acute recognition of the W.H.O.’s failings: “We have learned lessons of humility,” the earlier draft had said. |