非洲疾控呼吁资金应对埃博拉疫情

Western countries all of them are cutting funding to Africa. And some of these programs were supported by funding coming from Western countries, like for human resources, for testing, for, uh, transportation of samples. And suddenly African countries has to think how to, uh, to, to fund money and to cover this game. But it takes some time. And I think the combination of all, all of these factors are fueling this mistrust that we see at the community level.

I wanted to talk about this focus the US has, you know, of of keeping the Ebola out of its own country. Now, does that stance present an hindrance to fighting the current Ebola crisis, you think? We value the support we got and we are still getting from the US, and we think that if we continue to work together and there is no reason for the US not to work with Africa, CDC now as everyone knows that Africa CDC is the leader in terms of public health in Africa.

There is no reason for us not to continue to work strongly because we have a strong relationship in the past. When will the trials of the antivirals and antibody based treatments actually begin, and where will it start? We are assessing all candidate vaccines. We are working together with CEPI, with WHO, with all other partners, and we also have some other people. Uh, I have a pharma company in Egypt. They say they can also offer solutions for vaccine.

We are opening our mind. We say we are waiting. Uh, we are assessing all candidate vaccine. I cannot tell you exactly what would be our first priority because we need to see. Based on all candidate vaccine, there are three-four now. Uh, and where we can start off for sure. DRC, they said they are ready for clinical trial. There is no problem to start in DRC, but let us finalize this uh, uh, conversation that we have and then we can launch that.

You know, Africa CDC, has said that the fight against the current Ebola crisis, you probably need some $500 million, but you have only raised a little less than half. What is the reason that the funding isn't coming to you, considering that it's such an important and crucial fight? The solution is not to close borders. The solution is to provide sufficient support to keep to contain this outbreak where it is. Then if Western countries, they know that African countries, they are doing the best.

They are also providing. And they did this meeting on the 16th of June we see many African countries coming to pledge funds, but it would be not sufficient. And we are saying to Western countries it's still the momentum to contain that. Please come work with us. We need $518 million. With that, we can ensure that we can contain this outbreak. It won't reach you. But if you say we don't provide funding, we close our borders.

I can assure you that this one will not be a solution. And one day, all of us would be surprised to see that this Ebola is somewhere else.