The Emergency Response of Global Health Governance to Health Issues: Ebola

Details

Supervisors

Belleflamme, Paul

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en Ingénieur de gestion

Abstract

The Ebola Outbreak caused 11.323 deaths mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea between March 2014 and March 2016. Because of this high amount of death and the quick transmission between humans, the outbreak became a global issue. Pharmaceutical companies were said to be profit driven and the World Health Organization (WHO) being the world health governor was not up to the expectations of the public. This paper exposes the consequences of the outbreak and the challenges the Ebola Response faced to develop enhancements to the global emergency response. The consequences related to Ebola can be divided into 5 categories. The economy in the three affected countries has been impacted with decreases in GDP growth. The latter has been affected by different factors including investors leaving the country thus job losses, quarantines making it difficult to move across the country, increase in food price and employees dying of the disease reducing available labour in the workforce. The LINKAGE Model reveals that Ebola has had an impact on the whole economy of impacted countries by affecting international and domestic trade in addition to the labour supply. Neighbouring economies have also seen slight decreases in GDP. The social consequences are a decrease in education, decrease in food supply leading to undernourishment, repudiation of the Ebola victims by the communities, an increase in child labour and an increase of child sexual abuse. These socio-economic effects are not only short-term consequences but it will take time for the countries to recover from them. Thirdly, this paper explores two aspects of the pharmaceutical industry: pointing out the negative and the positive actions made by the industry. The pharmaceutical industry together with WHO and other organizations fast-tracked the drug development process to fight Ebola. Donations came from all parts of the world. This global mobilization revealed that countries can find money under emergency situations and that investing upfront might avoid larger expenses in the future. Finally, stock market declines in neighbouring economies demonstrated that even when Ebola is not present in the country, it has consequences on their market. Understanding the consequences of the Ebola outbreak is important to minimize those effects when developing improvements to the emergency response. The Ebola Response showed both positive actions and highlighted challenges. The WHO did not take this role of global governor from the start, which lead to an uncoordinated Ebola Response. In August 2014, five months after the beginning of the outbreak the WHO took this role as a leader and declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Out of this, we could say that besides the excellent work that was done, the Ebola Response took time to put itself in place (slow response). Also partnerships with the private sectors or between humanitarian organizations were made on the spot while they could have been anticipated. In short a slow Ebola Response resulted in a less efficient response. Multiple reasons explain how this happened: such as a lack of budget, legitimacy of the WHO questioned, and preparation and lack of International Health Regulations (IHR) enforcement. The positive aspect to keep in mind is that it demonstrated that the world can collaborate and has the resources to fight back against such outbreak. Knowing the consequences and challenges related to Ebola, reforms can be taken to improve the global health emergency response of the WHO. Two main changes are recommended. First insert an Emergency Group with a matrix organizational structure and direct contact with WHO’s HQ. This to have a quicker response and the structure will allow regional and mission focus. Moreover this matrix organizational structure enables an efficient flow of information, human resources and ease of communication. Second, implement an online data platform to increase communication, share information and trigger collaboration. To support these main changes, WHO must have an increased budget, mechanisms to enforce IHR, invest in healthcare around the world and to delegate authority to emergency groups. These implementations have the goal to: 1. Improve the speed of emergency response; 2. Increased coordination in response; 3. Give capacity-based authority to the WHO; 4. Enforce IHR policies; 5. Increase healthcare infrastructure and services in countries; 6. Increase communication and sharing of information between countries; With these changes I believe the effects related to the virus in the affected countries will be minimized. Indeed the reforms focus on prevention, tackling the social problems faced during the outbreak through the Organization Partners mission and the strategy focuses on the recovery of the countries. Moreover enforcing the IHR policies will reduce the use of quarantines in affected countries and thus limit the slowdown of the economy. More importantly, an increase in coordination, will improve the efficiency of the response saving human lives.