WHO / EBOLA RESPONSE UNMEER
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STORY: WHO / EBOLA RESPONSE UNMEER
TRT: 3.07
SOURCE: WHO / RECENT
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 2, 4 – 5 OCTOBER 2014 – SIERRA LEONE AND LIBERIA
4 OCTOBER 2014, LAKKA NEIGHBOURHOOD IN FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
1. Various shot, visit to South African Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Desease Mobile Laboratory and Ebola isolation unit run by NGO Emergency
5 OCTOBER 2014, FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director-General:
“It's going to take months to get Ebola under control. When you have this much disease, in so many places, it is going to take some time to stop this. That's also because of the practices that you have to change are difficult. We have to look at how people bury people, how they care for the sick in this country, and you have to do that against the background and backdrop of a very weak health system. It takes a long time to change practices which have evolved over hundred, perhaps thousands of years. So these things are going to take time, and the virus is not giving them very much time.”
4 OCTOBER 2014, LAKKA NEIGHBOURHOOD, FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
3. Various shots, visit to South African Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Desease Mobile Laboratory and Ebola isolation unit run by NGO Emergency
5 OCTOBER 2014, FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director-General:
“UNMEER is going to be a fantastic complement to what's already happening here on the ground. There is lots of great practice; there are great agencies, UN agencies, partners doing good things. The challenge is now to harness all of that, pull that all together, pull that best practice together, prioritise, and get out there as we said to the districts, get out there and expand the programme geographically. All of this speaks to the strengths of UNMEER. UNMEER is based on the backbone of some of the UN biggest operations, which means they have that got capacity to scale, they have got that logistics capacity, and we, rather, because we are all part of UNMEER now, we have also got the capacity to coordinate, bring crisis management skills to a programme that really needs to speed up a little bit if it is going to get in front of this virus.”
2 OCTOBER 2014, FOYA, LIBERIA
5. Varios shots, field visit to Foya
5 OCTOBER 2014, FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Anthony Banbury, SRSG of UNMEER:
“Well, first my impressions are that a lot has been done. The UN system, the UN country team, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, they have been working so hard at a very difficult problem, but the crisis is well beyond the capacities that exist now on the ground. What is apparent based on the four days that we have just spent in Liberia and Sierra Leone, is much more needs to be done.”
2 OCTOBER 2014, FOYA, LIBERIA
7. Various shots, visit to MSF Ebola treatment centre and meeting with local leaders
5 OCTOBER 2014, FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Anthony Banbury, SRSG of UNMEER:
“So far there has been a lot of focus on the medical side of this problem, but it is much more than a medical crisis. It is a multi-dimensional crisis, with impacts in many sectors and a requirement for interventions and assistance in many areas. Health, logistics, social mobilisation and especially crisis management capability. We need to put all those capacities in place.”
2 OCTOBER 2014, FOYA, LIBERIA
9. Various shots, visit to MSF Ebola treatment centre and meeting with local leaders
After a week of visiting programmes in the three intensely-affected countries and discussing the challenges of the ongoing response with the government officials, health workers, UN and other partner agencies, Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director-General said “it's going to take months to get Ebola under control.”
According to WHO’s latest figures on Ebola Response, a total of 8399 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) have been reported in seven affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Spain, and the United States of America) up to the end of 8 October. There have been 4033 deaths.
In a recent interview in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Ayward noted “when you have this much disease, in so many places, it is going to take some time to stop this. That's also because of the practices that you have to change are difficult. We have to look at how people bury people, how they care for the sick in this country, and you have to do that against the background and backdrop of a very weak health system.”
He added “it takes a long time to change practices which have evolved over hundred, perhaps thousands of years. So these things are going to take time, and the virus is not giving them very much time.”
Ayward explained that UNMEER is going to be a “fantastic complement” to what's already happening here on the ground.
He said “there is lots of great practice; there are great agencies, UN agencies, partners doing good things. The challenge is now to harness all of that, pull that all together, pull that best practice together, prioritise, and get out there as we said to the districts, get out there and expand the programme geographically. All of this speaks to the strengths of UNMEER.”
The WHO Assistant Director-General pointed out that UNMEER is based on the backbone of some of the UN biggest operations and he added “which means that they have got capacity to scale, they have got that logistics capacity, and we, rather, because we are all part of UNMEER now, we have also got the capacity to coordinate, bring crisis management skills to a programme that really needs to speed up a little bit if it is going to get in front of this virus.”
Also in a recent interview in Freetown, Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) noted the Mission could immediately assist with filling urgent gaps such as providing transportation, logistics and other supplies to the current frontline workers fighting Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
He said “my impressions are that a lot has been done. The UN system, the UN country team, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, they have been working so hard at a very difficult problem, but the crisis is well beyond the capacities that exist now on the ground. What is apparent based on the four days that we have just spent in Liberia and Sierra Leone, is much more needs to be done.”
Banbury added “so far there has been a lot of focus on the medical side of this problem, but it is much more than a medical crisis. It is a multi-dimensional crisis, with impacts in many sectors and a requirement for interventions and assistance in many areas. Health, logistics, social mobilisation and especially crisis management capability. We need to put all those capacities in place.”
He also noted that UNMEER can be very helpful on the crisis management, on the logistics and the social mobilization.