AP, Geneva :
The World Health Organization has proposed reforms that could overhaul its structure after botching the response to the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak, a sluggish performance that experts say cost thousands of lives.
On Sunday, several dozen of WHO’s member countries approved a resolution that could transform the UN health agency in response to sharp criticism over its handling of the West Africa epidemic.
“The WHO we have is not the WHO we need,” said Dr Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said decisions at WHO were often made for political rather than scientific reasons.
WHO’s chief, Dr Margaret Chan, acknowledged Sunday that the agency was too slow to grasp the significance of the Ebola outbreak, which is estimated to have killed more than 8,600 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Critics say the kinds of reform being adopted are long overdue, though it is unclear what concrete changes will actually result.
“The groundswell of dissatisfaction and lack of trust in WHO over Ebola has reached such a crescendo that unless there is fundamental reform, I think we might lose confidence in WHO for a generation,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University.
The World Health Organization has proposed reforms that could overhaul its structure after botching the response to the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak, a sluggish performance that experts say cost thousands of lives.
On Sunday, several dozen of WHO’s member countries approved a resolution that could transform the UN health agency in response to sharp criticism over its handling of the West Africa epidemic.
“The WHO we have is not the WHO we need,” said Dr Tom Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said decisions at WHO were often made for political rather than scientific reasons.
WHO’s chief, Dr Margaret Chan, acknowledged Sunday that the agency was too slow to grasp the significance of the Ebola outbreak, which is estimated to have killed more than 8,600 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Critics say the kinds of reform being adopted are long overdue, though it is unclear what concrete changes will actually result.
“The groundswell of dissatisfaction and lack of trust in WHO over Ebola has reached such a crescendo that unless there is fundamental reform, I think we might lose confidence in WHO for a generation,” said Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University.
