I have just returned from Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, where I saw for myself the devastating effects of the epidemic on people already coping with the impact of conflict and poverty. While in Freetown, I met with a wide range of people including the President of Sierra Leone, the Minister for Health, the Minister for Social Welfare and other senior members of the Government, as well as the head of the new UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, UNMEER.

If one were to say there was a time lag in the response of three months, one must go directly to Sierra Leone and its response internally as a sovereign state. Ireland is playing a key role. We have a diplomatic mission there. Our ambassador to Sierra Leone, Ms Sinead Walsh, is working tirelessly in assisting the co-ordination of the containment response, and I pay tribute to her. If the response was slow for the first three months, in the past 72 hours there has been a significant ramping up of the international response through the WHO and organisations such as Concern, GOAL, PLAN - including PLAN Ireland - the UN infrastructure and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We have sought to influence the Government of Sierra Leone, because of the very poor state of its primary health care infrastructure and public health care system, to lift its response from government control and transplant it to international co-ordinated response. Although I am satisfied that the response is robust, sadly, the crisis will get worse before it gets better. I estimate, based on my interaction with agencies on the ground, that because of the very poor health care systems there, the numbers may be under-reported and will increase. It could take a number of weeks for all the organisations to get ahead of containment.

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