Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the head of the United Nations mission against the Ebola virus in Africa, told the BBC he expects the outbreak that began in February 2014 to be vanquished “by the end of the summer.”
In what year?
Noting that Ahmed initially mentioned “August” as the estimated date for the end of the virus’ reign over Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the BBC notes that Ahmed also admitted its prolonged ravaging of West Africa was partially exacerbated by “arrogant” decisions made on the part of United Nations officials. “There was probably a lack of knowledge and there was a certain degree of arrogance, but I think we are learning lessons,” he told BBC. He added, “We have been running away from giving any specific date, but I am pretty sure myself that it will be gone by the summer.”
His remarks on the failures of the UN in combating the Ebola virus follow revelations last week by the Associated Press that the World Health Organization refused to declare an official state of emergency in west Africa over Ebola for fear of disturbing the politics of the region. According to emails the AP obtained, among the reasons listed for not calling the outbreak an emergency were the potential of outrage on behalf of African politicians and the possibility that such an announcement would disturb the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
The WHO isn’t fit for purpose. It’s lost its way. It devotes more of its attention to preventing smoking than preventing communicable diseases.
While the virus’ spread has been curbed significantly, fears are resurfacing that a resurgence of the outbreak is underway. In Liberia, the first Ebola case in two weeks was confirmed over the weekend: a cook in Liberia whom the Liberian Observer reports worked in a “cold bowl shop,” a common eating establishment with few sanitary precautions. Authorities are currently working to find every person the new Ebola patient personally served during the time frame she may have been contagious.
From CNN:
In a scathing new report, published Monday, Doctors Without Borders puts the blame squarely on a “global coalition of inaction” that waited months to respond to the epidemic.
“The Ebola epidemic proved to be an exceptional event that exposed the reality of how inefficient and slow health and aid systems are to respond to emergencies,” said said Dr Joanne Liu, the organization’s international president in the report, “Pushed to the Limit and Beyond.”
For example, by March 21, 2014, 78 victims had died, mostly in Guinea. The World Health Organization said at the time that while the Ebola outbreak is serious, it is “relatively small, still.”
“For the Ebola outbreak to spiral this far out of control required many institutions to fail,” said Christopher Stokes, the director general for Doctors Without Borders. “And they did, with tragic and avoidable consequences.”
Local hospitals were overwhelmed. International response was weak.
Vox:
In Guinea, where the outbreak started, new cases continue to be identified. In the latest reporting period for the week prior to March 15, officials found 95 new Ebola cases — the highest weekly total in the country in 2015, according to the WHO.
Frank Davis 
Margaret Chan and the whole UN is the problem.
Their in world domination takeover mode right now and want people to die. Hell I wouldn’t doubt their paying Pharma to create more killer viruses masked as flu than anything else.
Going to have 4 teeth yanked Thursday…….When the Nazis claim smoking rots your teeth, its soda that does it. Not the smoking .
Mine were fine until about 5 years ago when the upper middle teeth enamel gave way and started plopping off. Went to the VA dental to get them fixed and they did 2 over 8 months. As appointments are out as much as 6-8 months now. After that long a time they just fell away and 3 got infected from the waiting times. They don’t give a crap about wait times versus immediate need.
So now Im just gonna have the whole top yanked and go with a plate. Even though I got 7 other perfect teeth its where you lose them that add up.
Besides the Incisor just went inflamed and broke off down to the pulp………….That got into my sinus cavity and has caused me all kinds of grief.
You should have great fun with dentures.
It is rather amusing to take them out and give nannies a toothless, maniac grin! :)
Politicians do not do very well when it comes to fighting serious social/medical problems.
Here in the USA, 50 years ago, a ‘War on Poverty’ was declared.
$22 trillion later, it is very evident that ‘Poverty’ has won the war.
Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the head of the United Nations mission against the Ebola virus in Africa, told the BBC he expects the outbreak that began in February 2014 to be vanquished “by the end of the summer.”
Indeed: In what year?
I fail to understand, why international response was (and still is) being critizised for ‘lack of action’.
Don’t we have a WHO whom we all pay for for this kind of emergency?
Perhaps the financial management of this – for taxpayers expensive – club no longer caters for REAL danger to human lives? Wasn’t Margaret Chan from 13.10.14 – 18.10.14 wining&dining in MOSCOW, dreaming up more inhumane and degrading treatment for smokers, also adding vapers to this? The WHO’s plans for us smokers/vapers have not yet all been revealed. This *Gruselkabinett of WHO on that tobacco control *Geisterbahn deems the in the meantime to >8000 people’s death due to Ebola as collateral damage to their “SAVE FICTIONAL LIVES” by making people miserable obscession?
If the international community has to act fast and pay to combat REAL EPIDEMICS perhaps we could just assign this WHO to the rubbish tip?
[*Translation issue: Gruselkabinett = collection of ugly, scary people or things; Geisterbahn = either a Gruselkabinett on a cart (just like the ones in fairgrounds), scaring everyone, or people in one of these fairground ride carts, being taken to see a Gruselkabinett]
Off topic *apologies*
This morning I got up early to paint the biggest wall in my house. I HATE painting this wall and so I had planned to dig out some old CDs and blast the place whilst I balance half way up the stairs on the very top of my ladder, getting the job done. Just as I was changing “Dios” to “Kat” I received a text – so I decided to see if the BBC news would mention something. It sure did! All day long coverage of the airplane crash!!! I did listen to it as I tackled this hated wall.
It didn’t take long before the first ‘EXPERT’ appeared, offering his speculations…. As the day wore on I could not help to compare the BBC to the German paper “Bild”. Only ONE person did point out that speculations can backfire – and that it’s best to wait for facts.
That does remind me of a question: what about all us BEING FACT that smoking DOES NOT kill? After all, we all live longer and the baby-boomer generation will retire at the age of 67/65?
Tobacco Control, write a 2000 word essay. Do NOT use the stuff you call ‘research’ you have funded with the gullible ones (e.g. Bill Gates) money.
I could not help to compare the BBC to the German paper “Bild”
“Bild” by far isn’t “the Worst” any more.
“Spiegel”, “Stern” and “Focus” often are even worse meanwhile. In terms of mis-reporting, that is. And so are the main German TV programmes.
But I’m pretty sure you know that anyway, Brigitte.
TV programmes
I meant TV channels or stations.
BBC: The truth about ebola
Thanks! I’ll watch it later. I am a bit weary when it comes to BBC documentaries, especially when it involves the WHO and Ebola.
When was this documentary shown?
I don’t know. It doesn’t say. I came across it on iplayer this evening.
It’s critical of the WHO. MSF come out well. So it seems to be truthful.
I did watch it last night – it’s on BBC iplayer for 28 more days. Just a few first thoughts to this documentary.
In true BBC fashion this documentary is very visual and soon after the start I began to wonder where the extremely good footage of the spread of the disease + the people suffering from the disease came from.
They did speak to the young girl who had innocently and in fear spread Ebola from Guinea to her Liberian village near the border.
(I was a little puzzled as to WHY this girl would want to be interviewed and do suspect a lot of the scenes were re-enacted)
Indeed, in this BBC documentary the WHO is, albeit timidly, criticised. Quite a few facts were omitted, when it came to the WHO’s reaction to being alerted to this Ebola outbreak. The WHO simply did play the epidemic down and in September 2014 concentrated on the forthcoming, from 13.10.14 to 18.10.14 in secret held, “conference” in Moscow, where they would decide what next to do to smokers and this time also vapers. To be on the safe side, though, they withdrew their staff from the affected countries.
Sure, the WHO person interviewed did admit that they ignored MSF’s pleas for help; at the same point also blaming the African governments involved as well the world not having been forthcoming with money for the Ebola epidemic to be halted.
[Surely, our taxes do not reach the African governments involved, but we all contribute to the WHO, whose job it then is to act should outbreaks like this occur. (?)]
The BBC also omitted one vital fact: This Ebola outbreak was not caused by the same Ebola virus (e.g. Sudan strain), neither was a short explanation offered what exactly this strain was.
[There was great opportunity to ‘collect specimen’ and e.g. sequence it’s DNA. I cannot see that this opportunity was missed!]
The documentary ends with the brief mention that epidemics like the Ebola outbreaks will recur and surely will spread into the western world. That it correct. However, in true BBC fashion, it fails to mention that we, in the western world do not live a virae-free life (MRSA being just one example of a relatively harmless virus mutating into becoming a killer) and that we do not have to wait for the next Ebola mutation to occur.
In this documentary the WHO looked a hapless bunch of people, apologetic on one hand, quick to point the finger of blame to others (African governments) which, indeed, did hamper MSF’s efforts to contain the spread, and western governments for not coughing up money. [Omitted was the Moscow frivolity as well as the money available for this and the dictation of what the WHO decided in secret.]
MSF’s desperate pleas + struggle were only mentioned in passing – if they weren’t mentioned at all I could see the MSF getting very stroppy, after all they were the only ones to release footage and angry reports!
Overall, it certainly is a watchable documentary. The truth? To me it’s a lot of vital omissions, lots of good camera work and little answers.
I can only guess that the WHO wants to get credibility back in order to implement what was decided, at the height of this Ebola outbreak, in Moscow with caviar and champagne. Brace yourselves, folks.
If anyone thought that this particular starin of Ebola is “dead”:
This is what the WHO tells us:
https://apps.who.int/ebola/ebola-situation-reports
This is what MSF said in May this year:
http://www.msf.org/article/ebola-crisis-update-6-may-2015
There are numerous other publications about this Ebola epidemic; all base their conclusions on figures reveived from the WHO. MSF, since the organisation went public after being ignored has been silenced by a simple tool:
4. MSF involvement in clinical trials
MSF is currently actively involved in three different studies in Guinea, focusing on three different aspects of the medical response: diagnosis, prevention and treatment.
Vaccination Trial: Since March 7, MSF has launched a clinical trial for the rVSV-EBOV vaccine in partnership with WHO. This clinical trial aims to verify the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine against Ebola. It consists of two arms: a ring vaccination arm, which means that contacts of a confirmed patient will be vaccinated; and the vaccination of Ebola front line workers (such as doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, staff involved in contact tracing, and individuals responsible for burials). WHO is responsible for the ring vaccination. MSF focuses on the front line workers and aims at enrolling 1,200 volunteers.
Convalescent Plasma Trial: The clinical trial for convalescent plasma began in the Donka Ebola Treatment Centre (ETC) in February in partnership with the Tropical Medicine Institute in Antwerp. Plasma from volunteering recovered patients is given to Ebola patients, expecting to boost their immune response. The study aims at enrolling 120 patients.
GeneXpert Trial: MSF has just started assessing the feasibility of using the GeneXpert technology (already used to test MDR-TB) to improve blood-testing Ebola in terms of logistics and timing.
I can only guess that MSF will not speak out when the next epidemic begins.