John P Howe on Ebola

The Ebola Outbreak: How Public-Private Partnerships Search for Solutions in Sierra Leone When natural disasters or medical crises erupt around the globe, like the Ebola outbreak, it’s not unusual for my phone to ring at any hour of the day or night.  A government leader or foreign ambassador in Washington calls with an appeal for help because the rudimentary health systems of many nations in the developing world don’t have the capacity to respond to major health crises.  Although always composed and articulate, the voices I hear on the phone convey the urgency and grave concern that is seizing their countries back home in Asia, Africa or Latin America. Ebola was no different.  Medical humanitarian organizations like Project HOPE are a crucial link in the chain of events when disaster relief plans are executed in a health crisis.  We deployed a team of infection control and disaster relief experts to Ebola-affected Sierra Leone in early October to assess the general health system capabilities and develop plans and recommendations for health programs that will fill gaps in the existing health system, which is overwhelmed by the Ebola outbreak. The HOPE-led assessment was funded by Merck and Co. Inc., which also lent us two highly skilled experts from Merck Vaccines: a physician/epidemiologist and former state health officer with experience in outbreak control, and a pharmacist/epidemiologist with 27 years of military experience.  Our team met with Sierra Leone’s p...
Source: PHRMA - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news