Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Big meeting at World Bank Headquarters on 18th Street, N.W. to exam and discuss the response to Ebola. Jim Kim (President of World Bank) specifically invited me (as did Paul Farmer), Discussed the WHO Roadmap and David Nabarro’s UN Plan. Present at meeting were: Tom Frieden, Jim Kim, Tim Evans (Senior Director, GHNDR), Jan Eliasson (Deputy Secretary General, UN), Margaret Chan (Director- General, WHO), Gayle Smith (by phone – Special Assistant to the POTUS at NSC), Mark Dybul (by Phone), Keiji Fukuda (WHO), Raj Panjabi (Harvard), Ariel Pablos- Mendez (USAID), Jimmy Kolker (HHS), Joia Mukhajee (PIH)Sri Mulyani Indrrawati (World Bank), Olusoji Adeyi (World Bank), and other World Bank people. Jim Kim took the lead and emphasized that we need to translate “planning” into action and took Margaret Chan to task for not exercising her authorities under the International Health Regulations (IHR) to take the lead. Despite Jim Kim’s strong urging, it still appears that we are not headed to great action. David Nabarro had some action items with no way to actually act. I mentioned gently to Margaret that she should not say that “We plan to have to Epidemic under control in 6 months” since this would signal to the world that we actually have a way of ending it in 6 months, when in fact we have no idea when it will end given the exponential nature of the increase in cases. I also told story of when Colin Powell and I went to the UNGASS in the early 2000s and he declared the AIDS pandemic a global security threat and this got the attention of everyone. We should do the same thing with Ebola. Press – MSNBC with Peter Alexander; Fox News with Lou Dobbs.