Dive Brief:
- Officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) are conceding that the agency was not aggressive enough about alerting the world of the Ebola threat, Reuters reports.
- The WHO also noted that it made other mistakes, such as not working effectively in collaboration with partners to abate the crisis and a general confusion around roles and responsibilities.
- The statement, which was attributed to Director-General Margaret Chan, as well other directors, listed eight lessons learned and was a response to a broad criticism that the WHO's response was partially responsible for the scale of the crisis.
Dive Insight:
The statistics related to the largest, most deadly Ebola outbreak ever—which started in late 2013—are dire enough to elicit soul-searching everywhere. All told, there were more than 25,000 cases of Ebola and 10,000 deaths related to the crisis.
WHO concedes that it deals much better with small and mid-sized cases, but was completely overwhelmed by the catastrophic scale of the Ebola crisis. However, in January, the General Assembly adopted a resolution in which major reforms will be implemented, including the creation of a 1,000-person emergency reserve force, as well as a rapid-response force.
In addition, the WHO is setting up a contingency fund to guarantee disaster preparedness.