{"id":1064,"date":"2014-10-07T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T15:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2014-10-07T08:47:35","modified_gmt":"2014-10-07T15:47:35","slug":"1064","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/2014\/10\/07\/1064\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola: Why is it so bad? (Part 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post continues the discussion from my last post, which raised the question: why has the Ebola crisis become so severe? Another contributing factor: the\u00a0<\/span>\u201cdismal\u201d<\/a>\u00a0response of the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations auxiliary organization.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"World<\/a>
World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva. Wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
As an international public health crisis, this crisis falls squarely in\u00a0the sphere of the WHO<\/a>. To be clear, response to Ebola is not the sole responsibility of the WHO.\u00a0In the words of the director general of WHO<\/a>,<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cAnd we are not the first responder. You know, the government has first priority to take care of their people and provide health care. W.H.O. is a technical agency.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And, of course, in addition to affected states, charitable NGOs like Doctors without Borders have an essential role to play as well. However, the WHO’s responsibility for coordination of the the international response the disease and ability to provide technical assistance to stricken region are also important. But, quoting\u00a0Foreign Policy\u2019s Laurie Garret<\/a>\u00a0 the WHO has been \u201cAWOL.”<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Why has the WHO been behind the ball in this crisis? Besides any leadership failures or institutional inertia, it’s just not adequately resourced to address the crisis.\u00a0The financial crisis of 2008 is a key piece of that puzzle.<\/a>\u00a0Not surprisingly, as government budgets tanked, WHO revenues\u2014which is based primarily philanthropy of the international community\u2014dried up. A knock-on effect in the currency markets worsened the blow to WHO. Traders ditching their Euros drove up the price of Swiss Francs 32% compared to the US dollar. Because WHO is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, its income\u2014received primarily in US dollars\u2014shrank dramatically in relation to its expenses in Francs. Shifting public health priorities, namely the growing impact of noncommunicable conditions such as cancer and heart disease in industrialized society, and intense financial pressures led to a fateful budgeting decision. In 2012, WHO\u2019s crisis and epidemic funding was cut\u00a0in half.<\/i>\u00a0Tumult at WHO\u2014a factor completely independent of Ebola\u2019s properties as a disease\u2014helps to explain this outbreak\u2019s severity. Next week, we\u2019ll investigate further abiotic factors fueling the eruption of Ebola in West Africa, so check back then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post continues the discussion from my last post, which raised the question: why has the Ebola crisis become so severe? Another contributing factor: the\u00a0\u201cdismal\u201d\u00a0response of the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations auxiliary organization. As an international public health crisis, this crisis falls squarely in\u00a0the sphere of the WHO. To be clear, response to Ebola is not the sole responsibility of the WHO.\u00a0In the words of the director general of WHO, \u201cAnd we are not the first responder. You know, the government has first priority to take care of their people and provide health care. W.H.O. is a Continue reading Ebola: Why is it so bad? (Part 3)<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1075,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/1075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/econ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}