New York – November 13, 2014

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-TRANSCRIPT-

Anthony Banbury (UNMEER), David Nabarro (Special Envoy), and Vandi Chidi Minah (Sierra Leone) on Ebola

Jean-Victor Nkolo (GA Spokesperson): Good afternoon, the President of the General Assembly will speak first, and then Mr. Banbury and Dr. Nabarro. Mr. President.

Mr. Sam Kutesa (GA President): Thank you. Greetings to you all. The Members States of the United Nations have just been briefed on the latest developments regarding the Ebola crisis. I thank all those who participated in this meeting including Madame Susanne Malcorra, Secretary General’s Chief de Cabinet and the officials who briefed the Assembly from Monrovia and Freetown.

Two distinguished senior officials are here with me today: Mr. Anthony Banbury, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and Head of the United Nations Mission for Emergency Ebola Response, and Dr. David Nabarro, Envoy of the Secretary-General on Ebola. On behalf of the United Nations, I want to thank the governments and people of the affected countries, and to express my solidarity to them, to the locals, and the local workers, and caregivers for their remarkable efforts.

Let me also reiterate my deep appreciation to Mr. Banbury and Dr. Nabarro, as well as the hundreds of UN staff and international workers who are on the frontline. The international community must sustain our efforts. [..]

Avoid stigmatisation and give great focus on the recovery from this epidemic as the outbreak has impacted all facets of everyday life in the affected countries.

(Current video on UNWEBTV begins here) Now is not the time to become complacent. We must stay vigilant and committed to stopping this scourge. We cannot afford to take our eyes off this crisis and must remain focused until the job is done.

In this regard, it is my intention to convene regular briefings in this matter. Mr. Banbury, here is the microphone. I would like you to address members of the press.

Mr. Banbury: Thank you, thank you Mr. President. I’d like to express my deep appreciation for the leadership shown by the President of the General Assembly, not just in convening the meeting today, but in convening the Assembly immediately after he took office and shepherding through the passage of Resolution 69/1 that brought into life the UN mission that I now have the honour of leading.

Ebola is an insidious and vicious disease. [Inaudible] it kills people, it destroys families, it robs livelihoods, it ruins healthcare systems and education systems, deprives children of the ability to have an education, it has stretched the health care systems of the countries beyond the breaking point, it deprives governments of financial resources by reduced economic activity just while it dries up the needs of governments to respond. And it has recently resulted in us passing the grim milestone of more than 5000 officially confirmed people who have died of Ebola.

At the same time much progress is being achieved. We see significantly decreasing infection rates in key areas; that is a result of two things: it’s a result of the communities themselves taking their lives, their way of life into their own hands, changing their behaviour, protecting themselves, and they deserve great credit for their resilience.

The other reason is because of the response, the national and international response, the Ebola treatment centres, the communities care centres, the safe burials, the contact tracing, the training that is going on, social mobilisation. These are all having an impact, and what this means is our strategy: The national plans, UN strategies, the UNMEER operation is working.

The problem is the disease has spread so much geographically. We will not defeat this virus by chasing it. We need to get ahead of it and the way to do that is to have a much greater geographical dispersal of our interventions: the Ebola treatment units, and the safe burial teams and all those interventions. And we need to have a much greater mobility, we are to respond quickly, move fast; get ahead of the virus.

This is happening now thanks to the mobilisation of international resources in support of the governments. We see more and more commitments, important capabilities, but we need to do more and we need to do it faster. Otherwise, Ebola will continue, not only to pose great risk to the people of Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, but also of Mali, where we’ve seen a new transmission case, a new chain of transmission posing risk to the people of that country, and now there are risks to all the countries of that region and indeed the world, until the last case of Ebola is snuffed out.

The risks posed by Ebola are too great to do anything less than everything possible. It is United Nations’ intention to do everything we can to bring the crisis to an end as quickly as possible. Thank you.

GA President: Dr. Nabarro.

David Nabarro (Special Envoy): Thank you very much indeed. Good afternoon. It really is great that the President of the General Assembly brought governments together. Together with some partners to review progress in the last six weeks since we had our last discussions here.

And I’d just like to express my personal and professional gratitude to the governments, as well as to the many generous individuals, who have put so much into the support for this enormous global response. It’s only just begun. We got a long way to go. But with all of your help, and all of your support, we are going to get there and support the people and countries that have been affected by the virus. To deal with the outbreak, and to come back stronger so they are better able to address such challenges in the future. Wherever they might be. Thank you, thank you to Mr. President.

GA President: Good

GA Spokesperson: We’ll take a few questions.

GA Spokesperson: We’ll take a few questions.

GA Spokesperson: Yes?

Press #1: Thank you very much. This is to Mr. Banbury and Dr. Nabarro. You’ve talked about the need for enablement, flexibility and getting smaller teams out into rural areas and staff into these areas quickly. Can you tell us how many staffs are needed? How many of these small treatment units are needed? How long is it going to take to get these rapid-response teams going? And there have been stories that some of the large treatments units have lots of empty beds. Does this mean that they should sort of wrap them up or try and move parts of them out to rural areas?

Mr. Banbury: One of the greatest challenges we faced from the very beginning is good information: on exactly where the disease is. Where is it spreading? Who is it affecting? How is it being transmitted? UNMEER needs to be a knowledge-driven, information-driven operation. So we can position ourselves, and the scarce resources we have, in a way that will provide the greatest and most rapid impact.

We are doing that now with the partners under the national leadership. There are national plans in place that UNMEER and the UN system is supporting. Working very closely with the national governments, those plans are adjusting based on the new information that we are getting now, as we develop a better understanding of where the crisis is going; where the disease is going.

We know we need to build more small centres. We know where we need to prioritize them. We know where we need to put diagnostic facilities, laboratories. We know where we need to allocate the scarce resources we have in each country. It is not just one country, what the crisis look like in one country, as compare to the other. Even within districts, from one district to another the situation is very different.

We have excellent teams on the ground working closely with the governments; but we do need more construction. We do need more specialised expertise to manage the facilities, and we need more money to fund it all. We are getting there but we are not there yet. Thank you.

Press #2: Excuse me, about the fund?

Press #3: Thank you, Mr. Banbury, Dr. Navarro. A question probably for both of you from a medical and policy perspective. I am sure you both‘ve seen that Morocco has recently withdrawn as the host of the African Cup of Nations, due to be held in January next year. More broadly, I am sure you wouldn’t want to specifically comment on Morocco specifically but more broadly, what should countries do when they are expected to host these large events that would see an influx of people from affected countries?

Dr. Nabarro: Thank you very much indeed. We want to stress to everybody that the way to help the world address the global emergency of Ebola, is to enable the countries affected by Ebola to get it under control, and that is our primary focus.   The decisions made by individual countries in relations to who they admit, and who they do not admit, are sovereign decisions.

However the advice of the World Health Organization has always been that to ban travel from certain countries to other countries, is not in keeping with best public health advice. Nevertheless, if countries wish to introduce certain kinds of restrictions that is their choice. I think that’s all we can say on this.

GA Spokesperson: [Inaudible]

Press #4: Today the International Monetary Fund said that they were changing their projection for getting the epidemic under control from the first quarter of 2015 to the second half of the year; and so I wanted to know from your perspective in the field is that [continent] with your view of it? And [there is also] this request by the US that all debt be forgiven to the three countries in attempt to raise money. Where does it stand in terms of actually helping the countries get the resources that they need to combat the epidemic?

Mr. Banbury: In terms of getting the crisis under control for the United Nations, for all the responders, for the governments, the only real objective is zero cases, that’s what we have to do, we have to get to zero cases left. That’s going to take a while but to bend the curb, to have reducing incidents of transmission lowering, lowering infections rate, we need to get there much faster.

The United Nations has a plan to achieve 70% of save burials by December 1. 70% of new cases in isolation by December 1. If we do that the rate of infections are going to be decreasing rather increasing and then we can focus the efforts on driving it down to zero. We are getting there. We are making, I think, very good progress, given the challenges, but we don’t know what’s going to pop up tomorrow, the day after.

As we have more and more deployments in the field, we are getting more and more information about change of transmission in remote areas that we’ve not been aware of. So we have a very serious crisis on our hands. It is not under control now. We are working very hard to get it under control.

GA Spokesperson: We will take two last questions.

Press #5: For Mr. Banbury. While you were addressing the Council, Chairman Ed Royce of the House of Foreign Affairs committee was raising questions about what he termed, more or less, the ineffectual and even counterproductive role of WHO in the early stages of the epidemic. Can you tell us what WHO is doing differently now?

Mr. Banbury: The World Health Organisation is an absolutely indispensable, vital part of United Nations, in global response to the epidemic. They are putting hundreds of people on the ground, epidemiologists, infections control specialists, trainers. They are integrated within the United Nations mission for Ebola Emergency Response. I think they are doing an excellent job. We will not solve this without them. And, I am very privileged and proud to work side by side with them.

Press # 6: Thank you [Inaudible] The Representative of Sierra Leone was talking that maybe at the end of November, early December you [will know results] about the trials about the new vaccines they are working on. Which are the details you have? When do you expect to have these vaccines there in the market to treat the people?

Dr. Nabarro: Thank you very much indeed. I think the situation with regard to anti- Ebola vaccines is promising; there are Phase 1 trials on the way, two candidate vaccines, and provided these go well, and the subsequent trials are successful, I am told there would be doses of vaccines available next year. And that is the situation that’s been looked after on behalf of the international systems by the World Health Organisation which will, in turn, help to ensure that the vaccines are available to those who need them, as quickly as possible.

GA Spokesperson: Would you like to add something Excellency?

GA Spokesperson: The Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone.

The Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone: The presence of efforts, the ongoing efforts to develop a cure are well advanced. But of course, we are cautiously guarded about these comments. We wish to make about those. But we hear that various companies in the UK, Japan, and China, also well-advance in trying to look for cure or better testing to isolate at least identify the Ebola virus, and also ensure there are better treatments. We are convinced that there will be positive news by the end of the year, and we are grateful to all those who have the biosecurity, biohazards, the clinical facilities and also the research facilities whether in the private sector or in the national capacity to make this happen. We look forward to a cure and we remain committed to the fight.

GA Spokesperson: The last question.

Press #7: Millions of dollars are coming in to help you defeat Ebola. What safeguards are being put in place to make sure that the money is spent well?

The Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone: Yes indeed there are several revenue streams, and there have been concerns raised about how these monies will be used, how they will be best deployed to those who are needed, and of course what we say to anybody who is concerned, is that there will be a time for a proper audit of all our actions: individual, collective regional and national. And at this time, we are focused on the response.

The UN has its own in-build safeguards. National governments, who are contributing, also have their own in-build safeguards to make sure that the funds they contribute go to where they supposed to go, whether is institution specific, country specific, region specific, or otherwise. We will work with everyone and realise that the world’s attention is focus on the three countries involved, and also focus particularly on Sierra Leone, and therefore we have the responsibility to use all funds received and report wisely.

Press #7: Can Mr. Banbury and Mr Navarro also speak [Inaudible]?

GA Spokesperson: Yes, Mr. Banbury.

Mr. Banbury: When the Secretary-General established this mission, he made it clear that he wanted UNMEER to act decisively, rapidly and get results. And not spent a lot of time marred in bureaucracy. And we are doing exactly as he charged us with, for instance, we are transferring assets from downsized peacekeeping missions four by four vehicles, to the Ebola effort for healthcare workers, ambulances, etc. What we’re able to do is have a much faster response but we are documenting things very clearly. We are doing it in full transparency. Everything is going to be available for our own internal auditors. The big difference with this response compare to others, is we are putting the bureaucracy and red tape behind us after the fact. We are acting, we are doing what’s necessary to get at the crisis, but we are documenting it and making it available for ex post facto ‘review. I think this is the way the United Nations will work more and more in order to serve the needs of people who we’re charged with serving. Thank you.

GA Spokesperson: Dr. Nabarro [Inaudible]

Dr. Nabarro: Thank you very much indeed just to say that certainly every aspect of the funding that is coming in and being process within the United Nations, is been subject to the closest possible scrutiny with regards to how those monies are spent. I think that’s all I would like to say on that.

GA Spokesperson: Thank you for coming.

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