Interview with Dr. David Nabarro, United Nations Special Envoy for Ebola

UNITED NATIONS NEWS CENTRE                                                               Jan.16, 2015

David Nabarro,Special Envoy on Ebola since August 2014, ...spoke with the UN News Centre in New York between his latest visit to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone and a trip around Europe where he will visit the World Economic Forum and national capitals, seeking more resources to continue the fight against the outbreak. He described the reducing intensity of the outbreak, the shift in focus of responders and his growing confidence that the outbreak can be beaten. He also stressed the need for continued vigilance and more international support – in the form of people, materials and money – and looked forward to approval of a potential vaccine for the disease.

Excerpt:  " I’d like to start by describing the outbreak as it appears right now, and then I’d like to talk about the way in which the national Government and local communities are responding and the ways in which the international community is helping them.

Let me quickly describe the outbreak. In September, we were seeing the numbers of cases in the region rising towards 150 per day and we were watching the daily tally increase day by day in an exponential fashion. That means the outbreak was accelerating ahead and we were very worried that the outbreak was outstripping the response. As I sit with you today, we have a daily figure for the numbers of new cases nearer to about 50 per day altogether. And in some days it’s less. But most importantly, if we look week by week, the numbers of new cases is gradually reducing. It’s the first time we’ve seen, in all three of the affected countries, signs that the outbreak is reducing in intensity. Now, we’ve not completed the job as responders until every last case has been identified and under treatment, and so we’ve still got some way to go.

Read complete interview.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/newsmakers.asp?NewsID=115