VIDEO - More investments are needed for health crises prevention, preparedness and response - Isabelle Nuttall, WHO

In the last ten years more than 15 Ebola outbreaks have been detected and successfully managed, but “in terms of investment in the research nothing had happened, in terms of better treatment, in terms of vaccination, no investment had been done,” explained Dr Isabelle Nuttall, Director of Global Capacities Alert and Response at the World Health Organization.

Dr Nuttall visited Brussels on 2 December 2014 to speak at a European Commission Conference on Health Crisis Prevention, Preparedness and Response. She agreed with her fellow panellist, Professor Christian Brechot, the Director General of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, that in previous years not enough had been done to prepare for viral haemorrhagic fevers outbreaks. 

“If something positive is to be taken from this crisis it’s really the wake-up call that more should be done on viral haemorrhagic fever,” said Dr Isabelle Nuttall, Director of Global Capacities Alert and Response at the World Health Organization. “Research has been scaled up and it’s really important to note that the amount of work that has been done in the few weeks was equivalent of months of work in a normal procedures. So that is what crisis can sometimes bring in terms of energy to move forwards.”

In the following video, Dr Nuttall discusses some of the lessons that can already be drawn from the current Ebola crisis and measures that should be taken to avoid this happening again.

Ensuring Primary Health Care

“That’s something we need to keep in mind also for the future. In parallel whenever there is a crisis we need to be able to maintain the rest of the provision of care so that the impact on health [because of other diseases] is not is not felt,” said Dr Nuttall. 

This has not been the case in the currently affected countries, where everything else has been put aside. It is risky to put these on hold as for example vaccination programmes need to continue. “This will require additional support in order to help with the basic infrastructure” said Dr Nuttall. This includes services such as training health care workers. 

Fear Factor

In 2013 in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines, over 150 foreign medical were deployed immediately to the scene of the crisis to provide assistance. “As we are talking now we still had only eight foreign medical teams deployed to the field [in Ebola affected countries]” said Dr Nuttall. “It’s not that governments were not mobilised, it’s just that it was difficult for different reasons.”

Dr Nuttall believes that the perception of their respective populations was part of the problem:

• What if the medical staff sent out return infected Ebola?
• Are the countries sending staff well enough to deal with a possible imported case?
• What about evacuating medical staff if they become sick while still in the field? Who will take care of them? 

All of these questions needed to be addressed and solutions found before medical teams could be sent into the field.