Overcoming WHO Weaknesses Critical In Light Of Global Disease Threats

Huffington Post: Ebola, Zika and the Weakness of the Global Health Regime
Daniel Wagner, CEO of Country Risk Solutions

“…The WHO was widely, and justifiably, criticized for its failure to swiftly sound the alarm about the global spread of the Ebola virus. … This raises disturbing questions more generally about the strength (and weakness) of the global health regime currently in place, and whether conflicts of interest and politicization of issues related to the issuance of declaring a health emergency are preventing a more robust response. … It is bad enough that some multilateral organizations have succumbed to bureaucratic inertia and harmful politicization, but when the organization charged with maintaining the world’s health fails to live up to its organizational imperative and raison d’etre — ‘the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health’ — it is dangerous. … [I]t is high time that we get our houses of oversight in good order … The coming ‘summer of Zika’ should serve as reminder to everyone that our margin for error is increasingly small” (6/3).

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