The World Health Organization appears to have mounted a swift response to the newly declared Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, marking a significant improvement from the organization’s slow and heavily criticized response to the West African Ebola outbreak that began in 2014.
In a May 15, 2018 article in STAT, Ashish Jha, senior associate dean for research translation and global strategy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said that it is too early to know whether WHO’s actions indicate a systematic change at the organization or a one-time fix. Jha said that a recent visit to affected areas by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was more of a symbolic gesture than a substantive strategy.
“I believe in symbolism, so I think the symbolism was good,” Jha said. “But I’m not sure it tells me a lot about how much better prepared we are, and how much more effective WHO’s response is going to be.”
Read the Stat article: As Ebola flares once again, a rapid global response invites cautious hope