The massive outbreak of Ebola in West Africa last year terrorized the international community and has led to the creation of an emergency fund to deal with future disasters like this.
Delegates at the World Health Assembly have authorized a $100 million emergency fund for the World Health Organization in the wake of the 2014 Ebola virus disease outbreak.
The WHO Secretariat will now have the green light to go through some structural reforms so that it is better able to handle such a disaster quickly, according to a WHO statement.
At the 68th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, delegates knew they had to figure out a way to improve the emergency response of WHO in the wake of a terribly epidemic of the Ebola virus that sent the world into a panic.
One way to deal with that will be to make deep reforms in the emergency work of WHO by creating command and control mechanisms on three levels: headquarters, regional, and the country offices.
The WHO will also have an emergency program that will be focused on adaptability, accountability, timeliness, and humanitarian principles, according to the statement.
Part of that will be setting up a $100 million contingency fund to help finance an extensive in-field operation for three months. The fund will begin as a two-year pilot, after which point it will be reevaluated.
Meanwhile, WHO was praised by the delegates for continuing to develop vaccines and drugs to combat Ebola, and that it is important to accelerate research and development of health threats that have not yet emerged in order to get out in front of them when they do happen.
In the meantime, the delegates want the Secretariat to continue to assist countries in better preparing for emergencies in order to reduce the strain on WHO in the event of an outbreak, or to prevent an outbreak at all.
