Donna Altenpohl on Ebola

Ebola response is a model of collaboration The constant stream of photos and reports about Ebola from West Africa tragically illustrate the speed at which disease can spread, devastating communities and reshaping daily life. GSK is working with many partners at an unprecedented speed and with passionate focus to try to develop a vaccine to limit the total number of deaths from this epidemic and future outbreaks. While the current crisis is our focus, there also are lessons for the future: US health and security can be threatened by events half a world away and the global community is not fully prepared for such disease outbreaks. We commend world health authorities, governments, public and private entities for their commitment and collaboration to aggressively meet this urgent health need, but we acknowledge the need to improve our preparations to respond to other global health crises before the next outbreak or epidemic. Americans have lived through such threats, including the anthrax-containing letters mailed to Congressional offices and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic that caused more than 10,000 deaths.  We must move now to prevent and contain future epidemics, whether it is Ebola or another emerging infectious disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) convened a meeting last week with governments, agencies, charities and companies, including GSK, to agree how to accelerate testing and deployment of vaccines that could restrict the evolution of this epidemic. GSK in ...
Source: PHRMA - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news