Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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398. To ask the Minister for Health the proposals put forward regarding the urgent need to reform the World Health Organization in view of the concerns expressed by many member countries of the WHO about the inadequate and slow a response to the recent Ebola outbreak; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4593/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The World Health Organisation is undergoing a process of reform to better equip itself to address the increasingly complex challenges of health in the 21st century. From persisting problems to new and emerging public health threats, WHO has stated that it needs the capability and flexibility to respond to an evolving environment.

The reform process has three objectives: programmatic reform to improve people’s health; governance reform to increase coherence in global health and managerial reform in pursuit of organisational excellence.

The first cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa were diagnosed in March 2014. However, the virus had been spreading in the region since December 2013. On 8 August 2014, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Ebola outbreak to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The current epidemic has killed more than all other known Ebola outbreaks combined. As of 28 January 2015, the cumulative number of cases attributed to Ebola was 22,092, including 8,810 deaths. There is recognition that the international community must take stock of the lessons learned from the Ebola response to direct WHO reform.

A Special Session on the Ebola emergency took place on Sunday 25 January 2015, ahead of the regular WHO Executive Board which runs from 26 January to 3 February. The objectives of the session were to review the current state of the Ebola response; make recommendations on further steps to stop the epidemic; and discuss how to strengthen WHO's capacity to prepare for and respond to future large-scale and sustained outbreaks and emergencies. Discussions focused on the need for stronger systems at national and international level, and within the WHO, to respond to future health crises.

I am advised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that Ireland delivered a national statement at the Special Session supporting the statement on behalf of the EU and its Member States. Ireland noted that experience on the ground shows that health systems need to focus on surveillance, logistics and political leadership as vital components in the fight against future epidemics. In particular, human resources and community health systems need far greater attention and investment. Ireland called on WHO to continue providing strong and close technical support to the current processes being led by the governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea for the formulation of national health systems strengthening plans.

Ireland also called on the WHO to ensure that the strongest possible country level leadership is put in place to support the three national governments in meeting the enormous post-Ebola recovery and systems strengthening challenges in the medium term and noted that the key skills required by the WHO Representatives in the coming period will not be Ebola response skills, but systems strengthening and health service delivery skills and experience.

Ireland underlined the pressing need for action now for a global network of skilled health care workers with adequate support systems in place that can be drawn upon with more speed and efficiency.

Finally, Ireland stressed the need for vigilance in moving from the current crisis to longer term recovery and the need to remain alert and ensure that adequate precautions are taken to avoid a reversal of trends or the overstretching of health systems that have become heavily reliant on external support.

The session saw the adoption of a resolution which, inter alia, requests the commissioning of an external assessment on all aspects of the WHO’s response to the outbreak, calls for reforms to WHO human resource structures and appointments systems, and requests the setting up of adequate surge capacity to tackle future health crises. A copy of the Resolution will be published on the WHO website .

A Report by Dr Margaret Chan the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, to the Special Session of the Executive Board on Ebola is available at .