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.

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The Guardian
http://www.guardiannews.com/
Accessed 28 November 2015
Ebola overwhelmed the World Health Organisation: it must never happen again
26 November 2015
by Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organisation’s regional director for Africa

At the World Health Organisation’s regional office for Africa, change is afoot across a number of key areas in an effort to prevent another Ebola-like crisis.

The Ebola outbreak in west Africa and its devastating toll on human life were stark reminders of the dangers posed by weak health systems. For the international community, the outbreak highlighted the importance of health security and epidemic preparedness, and demonstrated just how quickly local disease outbreaks can become global issues.

There is almost universal agreement that the international response to the outbreak was inadequate – it was too slow, too little and too late. All responders, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), were overwhelmed by the scale and devastation of the disease.

Fortunately, thanks to the herculean efforts of local and global partners, we have been largely able to halt this deadly epidemic. Yet there is evidence that the virus may persist for months in some survivors, leading to flare-ups of the disease, as occurred last week in Liberia.

Now is not the time for complacency; it is a moment for cautious optimism, reflection and action. The next outbreak, whatever and wherever it may be, could present new and even more complex challenges, and we must be prepared. This is not merely an option, it is a mandate.
At the WHO regional office for Africa (WHO Afro), we take our responsibility to deliver on this mandate very seriously. To prevent another crisis like the one we just experienced, we are changing the way we do business – quickly and substantively.

This week, we took a step in the right direction. At the 65th session of the WHO regional committee for Africa in N’Djamena, Chad, health ministers and senior officials from WHO Afro’s 47 member states endorsed a transformation agenda. This agenda will make WHO Afro the responsive, transparent and effective health agency the region needs and deserves.

Our reform efforts focus on four key areas. We will promote and instil shared values such as excellence, innovation, accountability and transparency. We will focus the technical work of the WHO secretariat on the region’s most important health problems, ensuring that evidence-based interventions are employed when and where they are most needed. We will build responsive strategic operations and strengthen management capacity to improve the way in which resources are matched to pressing health challenges. And we will enhance strategic partnerships and more effectively articulate and communicate our contribution to health development across the region.

These four focus areas are not just talking points. They will be measured and evaluated against a robust set of performance indicators, with rigorous monitoring and evaluation to gauge progress. They will be used to hold WHO Afro – and me – accountable to our most important stakeholders: Africa’s people.

In many ways, our transformation has already begun. Since February, we have been working to strengthen epidemic preparedness and response in 14 non-Ebola countries, resulting in the successful control of meningitis outbreaks in Niger, cholera among refugees in in the Tanzanian port town of Kigoma, and typhoid in Zambia. We’ve improved our collaboration with international partners, including the African Union commission, as we work toward the establishment of the African Centres for Disease Control. We’re working to grow Africa’s health research capacity, strengthen health systems and, ultimately, ensure universal health coverage.

These vital reforms come at a crucial moment. Just two months ago, the international community agreed a new framework, the sustainable development goals, designed to guide our collective efforts to build a better, healthier and more sustainable world over the next 15 years. While the African region has come a long way toward improving the health and wellbeing of its citizens, a renewed push is needed to fulfil the unfinished work of the millennium development goals and realise the promise of the this new agenda.

Guided by our transformation agenda, WHO Afro stands ready to lead in this new era. But we cannot do it alone. Achieving truly transformative change across the region will require support from governments, industry, civil society, academia and local communities. We must all step up and commit to achieving the sustainable development goals and building the Africa we want to leave behind for our children.

I am convinced that, by working together, we can and will bring health in the African region to a new level. The time to start is now.

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Accessed 28 November 2015
Fixes
Amid Failure and Chaos, an Ebola Vaccine
By Tina Rosenberg
November 24, 2015 3:30 am
Excerpt
…The Ebola vaccine is a double achievement. Researchers proved the effectiveness not just of a novel vaccine, but also of a novel method of testing it rapidly, in chaotic conditions and without traditional clinical trials. Even as it was being tested, the vaccine was helping to contain Ebola. Today, hopes are high that it will administer the coup de grace to the epidemic.
How was this achieved? And what can the world learn that will save lives and money in fighting future outbreaks of Ebola or other pathogens?…

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Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/home-page?_wsjregion=na,us&_homepage=/home/us
Accessed 28 November 2015
Opinion
Commentary
A Post-Ebola Plan for Sierra Leone
We need reforms that will help us recover from this crisis and boost our resiliency against the next.
26 November 2015
By Ernest Bai Koroma, President of Sierra Leone.
Earlier this month, Sierra Leone was finally declared free of Ebola. The celebrations in Freetown and across the country were jubilant, but our victory was bittersweet. So many of our brothers and sisters lost their lives fighting this evil virus. Families were broken. Children were orphaned. Our communities were plagued by fear and the hopelessness that the situation may never improve.

Today, our understanding of what is needed for our country to recover is clearer than ever. The devastation caused by Ebola was symptomatic of wider problems. My government is not only focusing on rebuilding Sierra Leone but also on pre-empting future disasters. We are confident we will come back stronger than ever….

… I have an ambitious six-point plan for a better Sierra Leone: Instigate governance and system reform. Ebola caused socio-economic devastation, but the systems developed under this pressure serve as powerful examples of how to improve. These changes will stamp out corruption and encourage transparency for sustainable, Sierra Leonean-led development. Promote social cohesion, education and community mobilization. We need to develop programs and awareness campaigns that reinforce the reforms, working toward gaining the trust of the Sierra Leone people, increasing the legitimacy of government and harnessing the untapped human capital that will be a major safeguard against future crisis….

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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Accessed 28 November 2015
Editorial Board | Editorial-Opinion | Nov 28, 2015
Everything went wrong in the Ebola outbreak. We’re still not ready if it happens again.
A report on the disaster underscores the risks of being ill-prepared.

ALMOST EVERYTHING that could go wrong did go wrong in the world’s early response to the outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa in 2014. Before it was over, the virus infected some 28,634 people and claimed more than 11,000 lives. It could happen again — and the world is still not ready.

Guinea had a weak health-care system when the virus took root in its remote regions, making it easier for the virus to spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. Guinean authorities played down the seriousness for fear of creating panic and disrupting business. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak “relatively small still” in April 2014, and expert teams that had been sent in to the region were pulled out prematurely in May. WHO outbreak response teams had been “disproportionally” cut in a wave of headquarters layoffs. Margaret Chan, director general of the WHO, did not use her authority to declare a public-health emergency of international concern until five months after Guinea and Sierra Leone had notified the organization. Even after the emergency was declared, and a substantial global response was mobilized, “this response arrived late, was slow to deliver funds and health workers, was inflexible in adapting to rapidly changing conditions on the ground, was inadequately informed about cultural factors relevant to outbreak control, and was poorly coordinated,” according to a new study. “The result was, in essence, a $5 billion scramble.”

This is a sample of the findings contained in a report made public Nov. 22 by an independent panel of 19 experts who examined responses to the outbreak, particularly by the WHO, an agency of the United Nations. The report describes a cascade of failures and serves as a reminder that the existing methods of coping with infectious disease outbreaks are fragmented and fragile. The panel, launched by the Harvard Global Health Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found that during the Ebola outbreak, the WHO fell down in all of its core functions: helping nations build up health-care capacity, providing early warning, establishing technical norms and mobilizing resources. The agency now faces an “existential crisis of confidence,” is “starved” of resources and “seems to have lost its way,” the experts write. “Confidence in the organization’s capacity to lead is at an all-time low.”

Before another bacterium or virus goes on a rampage, the panel recommends bolstering the WHO’s ability to respond quickly, including with a worldwide research and development fund for diagnostics, drugs and vaccines for diseases that have been neglected by the pharmaceutical industry. In many poor countries, basic health-care systems are still lacking, hampering their ability to fight outbreaks. It is also essential that governments give early warning of disease, regardless of the consequences. Response teams must take into account not only health and science concerns but also the beliefs, traditions, cultures and fears of local populations. The world fails to learn these lessons of Ebola at its peril.