World Health Organization rethinks its response to disease outbreaks

Three years after the start of the world’s worst Ebola epidemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has created a programme to improve its response to disease outbreaks and to prevent another such calamity. In June, WHO director-general Margaret Chan named medical epidemiologist Peter Salama to lead a new health-emergencies programme intended to streamline the agency’s response to crises. As part of that programme, the WHO has launched the Emerging Diseases Clinical Assessment and Response Network (EDCARN) to provide guidance on how to care for people during disease outbreaks. Global-health experts say that the changes are a step in the right direction, but both developing and wealthy nations must do much more to avert another devastating epidemic. Some are also concerned that the WHO programme will have trouble getting the funding it needs to succeed, because of a lack of monetary support from member nations. “African countries are still so dependent on international and...