David Cameron calls for global rapid response team to tackle epidemics
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Version 0 of 1. David Cameron is to call for the creation of an international rapid response team of epidemiologists to be deployed at short notice anywhere in the world to advise on how to overcome emerging epidemics. The prime minister outlined the plan to Barack Obama over dinner in the White House on Thursday as he updated the US president on the Ebola crisis. Britain has been in the lead in tackling Ebola in Sierra Leone, where the infection rate has halved. On average, an Ebola patient in the west African country now infects one other person rather than two. The prime minister also wants to establish what has been described as an international platform that would overcome what some officials have been describing as the “abhorrently expensive and time consuming” process whereby drugs are licensed for deployment. The prime minister wants bureaucratic hurdles to be removed to allow the use of new drugs that can help treat patients in epidemics as soon as threats emerge. Britain and the US have tabled a resolution for the Ebola special session at the World Health Organisation executive board next month. This calls for the creation of a “global health emergency workforce composed of comprehensive emergency medical response teams that can be deployed effectively and quickly with adequate resources, including a global ‘on-call’ rapid response team”. |