Media/Policy Watch
This section is intended to alert readers to substantive news, analysis and opinion from the general media on vaccines, immunization, global; public health and related themes. Media Watch is not intended to be exhaustive, but indicative of themes and issues CVEP is actively tracking. This section will grow from an initial base of newspapers, magazines and blog sources, and is segregated from Journal Watch above which scans the peer-reviewed journal ecology.

We acknowledge the Western/Northern bias in this initial selection of titles and invite suggestions for expanded coverage. We are conservative in our outlook in adding news sources which largely report on primary content we are already covering above. Many electronic media sources have tiered, fee-based subscription models for access. We will provide full-text where content is published without restriction, but most publications require registration and some subscription level.

Associated Press
Accessed 21 March 2015
5 key findings from AP’s story on WHO and the Ebola outbreak
By MARIA CHENG and RAPHAEL SATTER
March 20, 2015 8:13 AM
GENEVA (AP) — In the aftermath of the world’s biggest outbreak of Ebola, the World Health Organization acknowledged it was too slow to act, blaming factors including a lack of real-time information and the unprecedented nature of the epidemic.
But an investigation by The Associated Press has revealed the U.N. health agency knew from the start how unusual the outbreak was. Here are five key findings about WHO’s response to Ebola in West Africa:
1. WHO officials privately floated the idea of declaring an international health emergency in early June, more than a month before the agency maintains it got its first sign the outbreak merited one — in late July — and two months before the declaration was finally made on August 8, 2014.
2. WHO blamed its slow response partly on a lack of real-time information and the surprising characteristics of the epidemic. In fact it had accurate field reports — including scientists asking for backup — and it identified the unprecedented features of the outbreak. The agency was also hobbled by a shortage of funds and a lack of clear leadership over its country and regional offices.
3. Politics appear to have clouded WHO’s willingness to declare an international emergency. Internal emails and documents suggest the U.N. health agency was afraid of provoking conflict with the Ebola-stricken countries and wary that a declaration could interfere with the economy and the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
4. An Ebola-infected WHO consultant in Sierra Leone violated WHO health protocols, creating a rift with Doctors Without Borders that was only resolved when WHO was thrown out of a shared hotel.
5. Despite WHO’s pledges to reform, many of the proposed changes are recycled suggestions from previous outbreaks that have never taken hold. Any meaningful reform to the organization would likely require countries to rewrite the constitution, a prospect many find unpalatable.

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Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/
Accessed 21 March 2015
China Has Its Own Anti-Vaxxers. Blame the Internet.
Foreign Policy | 16 March 2015

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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Accessed 21 March 2015
Deep in the jungle, hunting for the next Ebola outbreak
By Kevin Sieff March 19
NOUABALE-NDOKI NATIONAL PARK, Congo Republic —

More than 3,000 miles from the fading Ebola crisis in West Africa, a team of U.S.-funded researchers is hunting deep in a remote rain forest for the next outbreak.

They aren’t looking for infected people. They’re trying to solve one of science’s great mysteries: Where does Ebola hide between human epidemics?

The answer appears to lie in places such as this — vast tracts of African jungle where gorillas, bats and other animals suspected of spreading the virus share a shrinking eco-system. If scientists can pinpoint the carriers, and how Ebola is transmitted between them, future epidemics will be easier to anticipate — or even prevent…