IDENTIFY. QUANTIFY. ELIMINATE.
A REGION IN CRISIS
A mural at the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, during the Ebola outbreak that affected thousands of Liberians in 2014 and 2015. Aylward was put in charge of the international response to the outbreak after earlier WHO efforts—hobbled by years of budget and staffing cuts—were criticized as tentative and inadequate. (U.S. Army photo courtesy of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District)
to understand did this actually happen or not, and then decide whether it requires an investigation, etc. So the machinery is getting tested every single day.
Army AL&T: Have there been any recent improvements in the machinery?
Aylward: Following the Ebola response, we had two big events just last year. One, of course, was the emergence of Zika virus in the Americas and beyond. And the second one, that’s not recognized by as many people internationally but was a very, very alarming outbreak, was the big urban yellow fever outbreak in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year.
Tese events happened as the new WHO Health Emergency Programme was being developed and rolled out. And the response was very, very different—the speed of the response— and the incident management system that was put in place after [the 2014 outbreak of] Ebola contributed greatly to the cross- organizational management of these Zika and yellow fever outbreaks in 2016. What we call our standard operating
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procedures for emergency management were operationalized, which got people on the ground faster, supplies out faster, etc. Another important improvement in the machinery was the work that had been done across what we call the Interagency Stand- ing Committee, or IASC, which is convened by the emergency relief coordinator of the United Nations [U.N.] to coordinate the international response to major natural disasters and man- made emergencies.
In 2016, new protocols were developed so that the IASC would also deal with infectious hazards. So that piece of the machinery and the whole U.N. system kicked in more quickly. I have to say, the Ebola outbreak really brought new urgency to long-needed reform and improvements, not just within WHO and not just within its member states, but also within the whole interna- tional architecture that can be drawn on in such crises.
Army AL&T: How do you get all these organizations together and establish a common sense of readiness and motivation that brings them together to act efficiently and appropriately?
Army AL&T Magazine
October-December 2017
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