by By Maria Cheng And Raphael Satter
In this photo taken on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, a health worker holds up his arms after he and others buried a person that they suspect died form the Ebola virus at a new graveyard on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. One year after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak, vaccine trials are under way in Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone will start a trial later this month. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)
The World Health Organization denied Monday that politics swayed the decision to declare an international emergency over the spread of the Ebola virus last year, despite evidence senior staffers repeatedly discussed the diplomatic and economic fallout of such a move.
A year after WHO declared that Ebola had been found in Guinea, the agency is on the defensive over reports that it dragged its feet when raising the international alarm over the disease. Internal communications published by The Associated Press last week documented senior agency staff discouraging the move about two months before the international alert was finally raised, citing diplomatic relations, mining interests and the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
WHO spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris said Monday that "political considerations did not play a role" and that notions to the contrary were due to a misinterpretation of the leaked documents. Harris did not respond to follow-up questions about how the documents should have been interpreted.
Political worries appear to loom large in the communications obtained by AP, which include emails and memoranda. A June 10 memo sent to WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan says declaring an emergency—or convening a committee to discuss the issue—could be seen as a "hostile act" by Ebola-affected countries. When senior African staff floated the idea of declaring an emergency on June 4, WHO official Dr. Sylvie Briand wrote that she saw such a move as a "last resort."
An international emergency was eventually declared on Aug. 8, by which point nearly 1,000 people had died.
Ebola was judged to have become a health emergency with international implications nearly a month earlier by the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
"I activated the emergency operations center at the CDC on July 9," said Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC director, meaning the agency moved immediately to put the organization's full weight behind efforts to curb Ebola in mid-July.
In this photo taken on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, Health workers carry the remains of a person that they suspect died from the Ebola virus near the village of Gbah on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. One year after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak, vaccine trials are under way in Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone will start a trial later this month. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)
Frieden said WHO's international emergency declaration should have been based mainly on health criteria.
"We need to ensure the technical issues are always the primary issues that lead to the decisions that are made," he said.
WHO argues that an emergency—the equivalent of a global SOS—wasn't needed despite criteria which suggest one is warranted when there's a high risk that the disease will jump to another country and spark a new outbreak there.
Recently drafted internal talking points seen by AP say West Africa's borders are so porous that it didn't make sense to declare an emergency despite the fact that the virus was causing an epidemic across three countries by early 2014.
"What we needed to see before declaring (an international emergency) was whether other countries that did not have this continuous cross-border movement were at risk," the talking points state. Harris, the spokeswoman, said that only happened in July when a Liberian passenger sick with the virus arrived in Nigeria.
Other experts weren't persuaded.
"I find that a very strange argument because to consider that an epidemic that had taken hold in three different countries was not an international epidemic ... (it) doesn't make sense," said Christopher Stokes, general director of Doctors Without Borders, which published a report on the outbreak Monday.
In its talking points, WHO tries to draw a distinction between declaring a global emergency and responding to the crisis, arguing that it mounted "a strong operational response" last year.
But that is disputed by several people who witnessed WHO's response on the ground. Many defenders of WHO, including senior people within the agency, say the organization just isn't cut out for hands-on work in the field.
"The role of WHO is to provide technical assistance to a country," Briand, the WHO official, told AP two weeks ago. "We're not made for operations."
WHO announced earlier this month it had created an independent panel of experts to assess its response to Ebola and a preliminary report is due in May.
Explore further: WHO mulls reforms to repair reputation after bungling Ebola
More information: An interactive containing a selection of internal emails and documents from WHO illustrating the agency's decision-making in the Ebola crisis is available at: http://ift.tt/1CS8uPV documents/who-ebola/
MSF's report on the outbreak (PDF): http://ift.tt/1CS8u2w limit_and_beyond.pdf
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
WHO mulls reforms to repair reputation after bungling Ebola
The World Health Organization is debating how to reform itself after botching the response to the Ebola outbreak, a sluggish performance that experts say cost thousands of lives.
WHO names Ebola response chief
The World Health Organization said Tuesday it had appointed its assistant director-general Bruce Aylward to head its overall response to the deadly Ebola outbreak.
Emails: UN health agency resisted declaring Ebola emergency
In a delay that some say may have cost lives, the World Health Organization resisted calling the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a public health emergency until last summer, two months after staff raised the ...
UN tally of Ebola deaths passes 10,000, most in West Africa
The World Health Organization marked a grim milestone Thursday in the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak, estimating that the virus had killed over 10,000 people, mostly in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia ...
Liberia officials: New patient tests positive for Ebola
A patient has tested positive for Ebola in Liberia's capital, officials said Friday, deflating hopes that the West African nation had beaten the disease after weeks with no new cases.
Recommended for you
Clinical professor shows pain diaries may slow patient recovery
For some people suffering from chronic pain, part of their daily routine is recording the extent of it in a pain diary. Often done at the request of their physician or therapist, patients may be asked to ...
Unraveling cystic fibrosis puzzle, taking it personally matters
In the genetic disorder cystic fibrosis (CF), the most severe symptoms are recurring episodes of lung inflammation and bacterial infection (known as "exacerbations") that happen from one to three times a year and cause ever-increasing ...
Implementing decision aids affects care decisions in urology
After Group Health Cooperative implemented video-based decision aids for men with two common prostate conditions, rates of elective surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and rates of active treatment for localized ...
Scientists use DNA sequencing to trace the spread of drug-resistant TB
Scientists have for the first time used DNA sequencing to trace the fatal spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis between patients in the UK.
Long-term effect of deep brain stimulation on pain in patients with Parkinson's disease
Patients with Parkinson disease who experienced pain before undergoing subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) had that pain improved or eliminated at eight years after surgery, although the ...
Study pinpoints pregnancy complications in women with sickle cell disease
New research reports that when compared to healthy pregnant women, pregnant women with a severe form of sickle cell disease (SCD) are six times more likely to die during or following pregnancy and have an increased risk for ...
User comments
Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more
Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.
by By Maria Cheng And Raphael Satter
In this photo taken on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, a health worker holds up his arms after he and others buried a person that they suspect died form the Ebola virus at a new graveyard on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. One year after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak, vaccine trials are under way in Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone will start a trial later this month. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)
The World Health Organization denied Monday that politics swayed the decision to declare an international emergency over the spread of the Ebola virus last year, despite evidence senior staffers repeatedly discussed the diplomatic and economic fallout of such a move.
A year after WHO declared that Ebola had been found in Guinea, the agency is on the defensive over reports that it dragged its feet when raising the international alarm over the disease. Internal communications published by The Associated Press last week documented senior agency staff discouraging the move about two months before the international alert was finally raised, citing diplomatic relations, mining interests and the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
WHO spokeswoman Dr. Margaret Harris said Monday that "political considerations did not play a role" and that notions to the contrary were due to a misinterpretation of the leaked documents. Harris did not respond to follow-up questions about how the documents should have been interpreted.
Political worries appear to loom large in the communications obtained by AP, which include emails and memoranda. A June 10 memo sent to WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan says declaring an emergency—or convening a committee to discuss the issue—could be seen as a "hostile act" by Ebola-affected countries. When senior African staff floated the idea of declaring an emergency on June 4, WHO official Dr. Sylvie Briand wrote that she saw such a move as a "last resort."
An international emergency was eventually declared on Aug. 8, by which point nearly 1,000 people had died.
Ebola was judged to have become a health emergency with international implications nearly a month earlier by the U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
"I activated the emergency operations center at the CDC on July 9," said Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC director, meaning the agency moved immediately to put the organization's full weight behind efforts to curb Ebola in mid-July.
In this photo taken on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, Health workers carry the remains of a person that they suspect died from the Ebola virus near the village of Gbah on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia. One year after the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak, vaccine trials are under way in Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone will start a trial later this month. (AP Photo/ Abbas Dulleh)
Frieden said WHO's international emergency declaration should have been based mainly on health criteria.
"We need to ensure the technical issues are always the primary issues that lead to the decisions that are made," he said.
WHO argues that an emergency—the equivalent of a global SOS—wasn't needed despite criteria which suggest one is warranted when there's a high risk that the disease will jump to another country and spark a new outbreak there.
Recently drafted internal talking points seen by AP say West Africa's borders are so porous that it didn't make sense to declare an emergency despite the fact that the virus was causing an epidemic across three countries by early 2014.
"What we needed to see before declaring (an international emergency) was whether other countries that did not have this continuous cross-border movement were at risk," the talking points state. Harris, the spokeswoman, said that only happened in July when a Liberian passenger sick with the virus arrived in Nigeria.
Other experts weren't persuaded.
"I find that a very strange argument because to consider that an epidemic that had taken hold in three different countries was not an international epidemic ... (it) doesn't make sense," said Christopher Stokes, general director of Doctors Without Borders, which published a report on the outbreak Monday.
In its talking points, WHO tries to draw a distinction between declaring a global emergency and responding to the crisis, arguing that it mounted "a strong operational response" last year.
But that is disputed by several people who witnessed WHO's response on the ground. Many defenders of WHO, including senior people within the agency, say the organization just isn't cut out for hands-on work in the field.
"The role of WHO is to provide technical assistance to a country," Briand, the WHO official, told AP two weeks ago. "We're not made for operations."
WHO announced earlier this month it had created an independent panel of experts to assess its response to Ebola and a preliminary report is due in May.
Explore further: WHO mulls reforms to repair reputation after bungling Ebola
More information: An interactive containing a selection of internal emails and documents from WHO illustrating the agency's decision-making in the Ebola crisis is available at: http://ift.tt/1CS8uPV documents/who-ebola/
MSF's report on the outbreak (PDF): http://ift.tt/1CS8u2w limit_and_beyond.pdf
© 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
WHO mulls reforms to repair reputation after bungling Ebola
The World Health Organization is debating how to reform itself after botching the response to the Ebola outbreak, a sluggish performance that experts say cost thousands of lives.
WHO names Ebola response chief
The World Health Organization said Tuesday it had appointed its assistant director-general Bruce Aylward to head its overall response to the deadly Ebola outbreak.
Emails: UN health agency resisted declaring Ebola emergency
In a delay that some say may have cost lives, the World Health Organization resisted calling the Ebola outbreak in West Africa a public health emergency until last summer, two months after staff raised the ...
UN tally of Ebola deaths passes 10,000, most in West Africa
The World Health Organization marked a grim milestone Thursday in the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak, estimating that the virus had killed over 10,000 people, mostly in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia ...
Liberia officials: New patient tests positive for Ebola
A patient has tested positive for Ebola in Liberia's capital, officials said Friday, deflating hopes that the West African nation had beaten the disease after weeks with no new cases.
Recommended for you
Clinical professor shows pain diaries may slow patient recovery
For some people suffering from chronic pain, part of their daily routine is recording the extent of it in a pain diary. Often done at the request of their physician or therapist, patients may be asked to ...
Unraveling cystic fibrosis puzzle, taking it personally matters
In the genetic disorder cystic fibrosis (CF), the most severe symptoms are recurring episodes of lung inflammation and bacterial infection (known as "exacerbations") that happen from one to three times a year and cause ever-increasing ...
Implementing decision aids affects care decisions in urology
After Group Health Cooperative implemented video-based decision aids for men with two common prostate conditions, rates of elective surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and rates of active treatment for localized ...
Scientists use DNA sequencing to trace the spread of drug-resistant TB
Scientists have for the first time used DNA sequencing to trace the fatal spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis between patients in the UK.
Long-term effect of deep brain stimulation on pain in patients with Parkinson's disease
Patients with Parkinson disease who experienced pain before undergoing subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN DBS) had that pain improved or eliminated at eight years after surgery, although the ...
Study pinpoints pregnancy complications in women with sickle cell disease
New research reports that when compared to healthy pregnant women, pregnant women with a severe form of sickle cell disease (SCD) are six times more likely to die during or following pregnancy and have an increased risk for ...
User comments
Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more
Click here
to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.
0 comments:
Post a Comment