International Business Times | September 14, 2015
The recent Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa was the moment that the World Health Organisation, or WHO, was created for and it failed utterly, according to global health expert Professor Lawrence Gostin. In an interview with William Isdale of The Conversation, Gostin cited incompetent staff and inadequate information as the factors that hampered efforts in stopping the epidemic.
“It was late, bureaucratic, political, and unconscionable. We allowed three of the four poorest countries languish with a preventable disease, and we did nothing for the first six months,” said Gostin, a professor in Georgetown University specialising in public health law. “The WHO does not deserve all of the blame, but a lot of it for being so late and for being so insensitive of the needs of the poor people.”