The writer is a former president of Liberia, Nobel Prize winner and member of The Elders, a group of global leaders
When Ebola emerged in Liberia almost a decade ago, we had very few tools and little support to fight it. It took a full nine months — once infections had spread beyond West Africa and I had appealed directly to President Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon — before the UN system fully responded. The international response, along with the dedicated work of community groups, helped to bring Ebola to an end — but not before it had killed more than 11,000 people in west Africa. Afterwards, we still had no licensed vaccines or treatments, nor the technology in the region to develop them.
That should have been a ‘never again’ moment. With worldwide news coverage, all countries should have seen that pathogens can spread across borders in a matter of hours. Political leaders should have made pandemic readiness a priority. The value of UN solidarity should have been built upon. The hoarding of for-profit vaccines and other medical technologies in the global north should have been reconsidered.
