A team of international experts has highlighted how the world remains ‘grossly underprepared’ for infectious disease outbreaks, which are likely to become more frequent in future decades.
However, a lack of clarity in terms of the main priorities and proposed reforms, led the researchers to look closer, synthesising seven major post-Ebola reports to assess recommendations and progress. Their findings recognised that the reports differed in scope and diagnosis of the key problems and recommendations for action converged in three critical areas: strengthening compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR); improving outbreak-related research and knowledge sharing; reforming the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the broader humanitarian response system.
According to the team, so far progress has been mixed in addressing the issues raised. Key problems include the fact that investments in country capacity building have been inadequate and difficult to track; arrangements for fair and timely sharing of patient samples remain weak, and reform efforts at the WHO have focused on operational issues but have neglected to address deeper institutional shortcomings. The analysis authors say they found ‘remarkable consensus on what went wrong with the Ebola respon
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