DHAKA: The World Health Organisation is ‘culturally’ unfit to deal with global health emergencies, an independent review has found in the wake of the Ebola crisis.

Experts called for a fundamental overhaul of the body, a branch of the United Nations, which was severely criticised for its failure to deal with the disaster last year, reports the Daily Mail.

A panel chaired by Dame Barbara Stocking, former CEO of Oxfam GB, found that the episode exposed serious problems within the structure of the WHO and the actions of those it employed.

The epidemic, which broke out in West Africa in December 2013, was not declared a public health emergency by WHO until August 2014 - which has been partly blamed for its rapid spread throughout the region, resulting in more than 11,000 deaths.

In a damning report published, the independent board commissioned to investigate the disaster said: ‘The panel considers that WHO does not currently possess the capacity or organisational culture to deliver a full emergency public health response.

‘The organisation’s capacity for emergency preparedness and response must be strengthened and properly resourced at headquarters, regional and country levels.’

They called for sweeping changes to the organisation, which employs 7,000 people around the world.

‘The world simply cannot afford another period of inaction until the next health crisis,’ the authors said.

Other findings included a lack of a ‘culture of rapid decision-making’, with staff reacting to events rather than making proactive decisions.

The report said the agency must make changes in terms of leadership and decision-making processes.

‘The WHO does not have an organisational culture that supports open and critical dialogue between senior leaders and staff or that permits risk-taking or critical approaches to decision-making,’ the authors wrote.

Experts called for a fundamental overhaul of the body, a branch of the United Nations, which was severely criticised for its failure to deal with the disaster last year

Experts called for a fundamental overhaul of the body, a branch of the United Nations, which was severely criticised for its failure to deal with the disaster last year

‘There seems to have been a hope that the crisis could be managed by good diplomacy rather than by scaling up emergency action,’ they added.

World leaders and charities also came under criticism.

‘The panel considers that during the Ebola crisis, the engagement of the wider humanitarian system came very late in the response,’ they wrote.

BDST: 1604 HRS, JULY 08, 2015
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