Belgian expert: WHO messed up Ebola response – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
A Belgian scientist who helped discover Ebola in 1976 has accused the World Health Organisation (WHO) of mismanaging the current outbreak response.
Peter Piot, an award-winning microbiologist, told Al Jazeera that “we wasted too much precious time”.
“It took three months for the WHO to find out there was an Ebola outbreak. That I understand. Guinea had a poor laboratory infrastructure,” said Piot in an interview due to be aired on Saturday.
“I have much more of a problem with the fact that it took five months for WHO, for the international health regulations committee, for that’s what it is, to declare this a state of emergency.
“It took a thousand dead Africans and two Americans who were repatriated to the US because they were infected. There’s no excuse for that… It took too long.”
Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for WHO, told Al Jazeera by email that “declaring a public health emergency of international cncern is not a measure of WHO’s operational response”.
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