Peter Piot, an award winning
microbiologist, and the person who co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976 has
stated that the World Health Organisation (WHO) mismanaged the current outbreak
response. He said, “we wasted too much
precious time".
"It took three months for the WHO to find
out there was an Ebola outbreak. That I understand. Guinea had a poor
laboratory infrastructure. "I have
much more of a problem with the fact that it took five months for WHO, for the
international health regulations committee, to declare a state of emergency.’’
Peter Piot, left, Belgian Ebola expert
"It took a thousand dead Africans and two Americans who were repatriated
to the US because they were infected. There's no excuse for that... It took too
long."
Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for WHO, in response said that "declaring a public health emergency of
international concern is not a measure of WHO's operational response".
Jasarevic said that WHO measures its operational
response on a scale from one to three.
"As soon as WHO received notification from
Guinea in late March that the first cases of Ebola virus disease had been
identified, we immediately increased our operational response to Level 2,"
said Jasarevic. "And we mobilised experts to Guinea, then to Liberia and
Sierra Leone through our Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network."
Having waited too long to act, Piot said the
international community has overreacted in unhelpful ways.
"An epidemic of mass hysteria that we saw
particularly in North America... was really out of proportion with the
issue."
He gave an example of the governors of New York
and New Jersey who made it mandatory for healthcare workers from West Africa to
be put under quarantine.
"It's not cost-effective and also it's a
major deterrent and disincentive for supporting the countries in West
Africa," said Piot.
He said potential solutions needed to address
both the lack of robust healthcare systems and the local population's cultural
habits and belief systems.
Source: Aljazeera
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