The Ebola crisis in west Africa could have been averted if governments and health agencies had acted on the recommendations of a 2011 World Health Organisation (WHO) Commission on global health emergencies, according to a new Comment, published in The Lancet.
The Comment, written by Professor Lawrence Gostin, Faculty Director of the O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University, USA, calls for renewed international commitment to a health systems contingency fund to prevent another infectious disease crisis, together with long-term funding for enduring health systems development.
Although WHO has now implemented a plan for dealing with Ebola – five months after the virus first began to spread internationally – implementation will be further delayed while US$490 million are raised to meet the cost of tackling the epidemic. In the meantime, Ebola continues to spread amongst health workers and the general population, in countries where health resources were already strained before the outbreak.
The 2011 WHO Review Committee proposed a Global Health Emergency Workforce, backed by a US$100 million contingency fund, which would have enabled the rapid initial response needed to contain the Ebola outbreak, but the Commission was not acted upon by WHO, lacking sufficient financial commitment from governments in high-income countries.
According to Professor Gostin, "How could this Ebola outbreak have been averted and what could states and the international community do to prevent the next epidemic? The answer is not untested drugs, mass quarantines, or even humanitarian relief. If the real reasons the outbreak turned into a tragedy of these proportions are human resource shortages and fragile health systems, the solution is to fix these inherent structural deficiencies."
"A dedicated International Health Systems Fund at WHO would rebuild broken trust, with the returns of longer, healthier lives and economic development far exceeding the costs. This fund would encompass both emergency response capabilities and enduring health-system development."
"The west African Ebola epidemic could spark a badly needed global course correction that would favour strong health infrastructure. Sustainable funding scalable to needs for enduring health systems is a wise and affordable investment. It is in all states' interests to contain health hazards that may eventually travel to their shores. But beyond self-interest are the imperatives of health and social justice—a humanitarian response that would work, now and for the future."
Explore further: UN releases $1.5mn to help DR Congo fight Ebola
More information: http://ift.tt/1tusEGH
Journal reference: The Lancet
Provided by Lancet
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© Medical Xpress 2011-2014, Science X network
The Ebola crisis in west Africa could have been averted if governments and health agencies had acted on the recommendations of a 2011 World Health Organisation (WHO) Commission on global health emergencies, according to a new Comment, published in The Lancet.
The Comment, written by Professor Lawrence Gostin, Faculty Director of the O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law at Georgetown University, USA, calls for renewed international commitment to a health systems contingency fund to prevent another infectious disease crisis, together with long-term funding for enduring health systems development.
Although WHO has now implemented a plan for dealing with Ebola – five months after the virus first began to spread internationally – implementation will be further delayed while US$490 million are raised to meet the cost of tackling the epidemic. In the meantime, Ebola continues to spread amongst health workers and the general population, in countries where health resources were already strained before the outbreak.
The 2011 WHO Review Committee proposed a Global Health Emergency Workforce, backed by a US$100 million contingency fund, which would have enabled the rapid initial response needed to contain the Ebola outbreak, but the Commission was not acted upon by WHO, lacking sufficient financial commitment from governments in high-income countries.
According to Professor Gostin, "How could this Ebola outbreak have been averted and what could states and the international community do to prevent the next epidemic? The answer is not untested drugs, mass quarantines, or even humanitarian relief. If the real reasons the outbreak turned into a tragedy of these proportions are human resource shortages and fragile health systems, the solution is to fix these inherent structural deficiencies."
"A dedicated International Health Systems Fund at WHO would rebuild broken trust, with the returns of longer, healthier lives and economic development far exceeding the costs. This fund would encompass both emergency response capabilities and enduring health-system development."
"The west African Ebola epidemic could spark a badly needed global course correction that would favour strong health infrastructure. Sustainable funding scalable to needs for enduring health systems is a wise and affordable investment. It is in all states' interests to contain health hazards that may eventually travel to their shores. But beyond self-interest are the imperatives of health and social justice—a humanitarian response that would work, now and for the future."
Explore further: UN releases $1.5mn to help DR Congo fight Ebola
More information: http://ift.tt/1tusEGH
Journal reference: The Lancet
Provided by Lancet
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Aug 27, 2014
The United Nations on Wednesday allocated $1.5 million (1.1 million euros) to help the Democratic Republic of Congo fight Ebola, just days after the country confirmed its first cases this year.
Aug 22, 2014
A top U.S. health official plans to travel to West Africa to see firsthand how the Ebola outbreak is unfolding.
Aug 14, 2014
The outbreak of Ebola virus disease that has claimed more than 1,000 lives in West Africa this year poses a serious, ongoing threat to that region: the spread to capital cities and Nigeria—Africa's most ...
Aug 20, 2014
The UN's new pointman on Ebola said Tuesday he will travel to West Africa this week to shore up health services in the four countries hit by the worst-ever outbreak of the virus.
Aug 08, 2014
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3 hours ago
(Medical Xpress)—Researchers have taken the first step towards preventing transmission of the mosquito-borne tropical chikungunya virus, which is in danger of invading Central and South America and the ...
3 hours ago
The avian flu virus that caused widespread harbor seal deaths in 2011 can easily spread to and infect other mammals and potentially humans.
4 hours ago
Some 200 experts huddled in Geneva on Thursday to debate experimental treatments for the Ebola virus as the world's worst-ever outbreak raged in west Africa, having killed more than 1,900 people so far.
4 hours ago
Resistance is … inevitable. "We can't afford to have huge gaps between discoveries of new antimalarial products; the pace of innovation is quite literally a matter of life and death," said Virginia Tech's ...
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© Medical Xpress 2011-2014, Science X network