Global public health experts have called for “fundamental and extensive reform” of the World Health Organisation (WHO) including major outsourcing of key activities, warning that the organisation is already at risk of repeating the mistakes it made in handling the Ebola crisis. The WHO faced severe public criticism for its handling of the Ebola crisis in West Africa in particular over the failure to declare a public health emergency quickly enough. Dhillon and Negin say that there have been similar failings in public health responses in Sri Lanka in 2009, Haiti in 2010 and South Sudan in 2013. The report says: “WHO should aim to outsource a number of its functions to other global agencies that are already leading the way. “A lot of donors are more impressed by the actions of other global health actors so they cut their funding for the WHO … I just want [the organisation] to be more focused on a few things it does well, [such as] orchestrating the global health community expertise.

Source: The Guardian September 12, 2016 22:30 UTC