Deputy-Secretary General, Warning All Are at Risk, Tells General Assembly Swift, Massive Scale-up of Global Response Crucial to 'Catch Up' with Ebola Epidemic

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s remarks at the General Assembly meeting on Ebola, in New York, 10 October:

I first of all want to thank you, the President of the General Assembly, for convening this crucially important and timely meeting at which I have the honour to represent the Secretary-General who is travelling.

Let me state from the very beginning.  Our response to the Ebola epidemic must be swift and effective to match the scale and urgency of the challenge.  Now is the time for action.  We must catch up with the menacing exponential curve of the virus.

The crisis is multi-dimensional, with serious effects not only on public health but also on food security, on social cohesion, on economic and political stability.  Hard-won development progress is in jeopardy.  Neighbours are at risk.  None of us are insulated from the threat posed by Ebola.  It is a global concern and demands a global response in compassion and solidarity with those affected.

That is why the Secretary-General formed the Global Ebola Response Coalition to galvanize international action, as well as the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) to coordinate action on the ground.  The Secretary-General and I thank the General Assembly and also the Security Council and Member States for their decisive and generous support for these initiatives.

This morning I presided over the first meeting of the Core Group of the Global Ebola Response Coalition.  We noted a wide range of actions and commitments to stop the epidemic and discussed how we could most effectively catalyze action.

But, let us be clear:  while the United Nations has stepped up to play a leading role, we cannot do this work alone.  No country, no organization can.  This crisis requires a collective mobilization outside and inside the affected countries, as the President just stated.

Here I would like to pay tribute to the courageous work of local health workers since the very onset of the outbreak in March.  Many national health workers have lost their lives.  Others, also working for organizations such as Medécins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, are selflessly risking their lives.  So, too, are our colleagues from many United Nations agencies.

Defeating Ebola is going to demand the best efforts of all of us working together — Governments, multilateral development banks, international and non-governmental organizations and many others.  We must work in concert to support the affected countries to implement their national response strategies for Ebola.  To that end, we are rapidly deploying people and assets and are working with unprecedented collaboration and speed.

We are guided by five simple commands:  one, stop transmission; two, treat those with Ebola; three, ensure essential services; four, reserve stability and five, prevent further spread.  The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and all United Nations entities in the affected countries have been providing critical assistance for many months.  They are continuing to partner within the unified framework provided by UNMEER.

On 29 September, Special Representative of the Secretary-General [Anthony] Banbury arrived at UNMEER’s headquarters in Accra with an advance team.  He has just finished a week-long assessment visit to the three most affected countries — Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea — to assess how UNMEER can best augment international and national structures and programmes without duplicating them.

The Secretary-General has just appointed Ebola Crisis Managers for each country, and he is in regular contact with the three Presidents of the three most affected countries.  And Special Envoy Dr. David Nabarro — at my side — remains fully engaged in efforts to forge strategic partnerships through the Global Ebola Response Coalition to achieve the massive scale-up of financial and in-kind resources that is so urgently needed.

There are now over 80 newly deployed UNMEER staff in the Mission area, with more on the way.  But many more staff will be needed to reach those areas where support is most needed, especially at the district level of the three countries.  I now appeal to all Member States to act generously and swiftly.  Speed is of the essence.  A contribution within days is more important than a larger contribution within weeks.

Recent cases of the virus outside the region have shown that this is a global crisis.  But, the answer is not to close borders or impose travel bans.  Such measures will isolate the affected countries, not the disease.  They will prevent urgent aid from reaching those in need.  We need international solidarity in the face of an international threat.

The Secretary-General and I are grateful for the growing number of financial and in-kind contributions flowing in.  Over 20 million dollars has been raised for the Multi-Partner Trust Fund in the last week.  But we need more; we need much more.  Of the 1 billion dollars sought by UN agencies under OCHA’s [Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] Consolidated Appeal, only one quarter has been funded.

We also need a surge in trained healthcare personnel who can deploy to staff Ebola Treatment Units and Ebola Community Centres.  And here we have some very important contributions from Member States like Cuba.  We need to make MEDEVAC [medical evacuation] available to health care and humanitarian responders and provide the necessary assurances for a surge of personnel to be deployed.  And we need dedicated treatment facilities for all health-care responders in-country, who continue to work at great personal risk.

We must aim to achieve quality care for all affected citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.  There are so many people that are not getting normal medical health care.  The hospitals are overburdened and people are even worried to go to the hospitals.  So you can imagine the number of people that are suffering and that are dying from other diseases:  malaria, tuberculosis, all the things that you would normally treat.  That is not part of our statistics yet.

We must also work to generally strengthen, therefore, the health sector, and, of course, now make sure they have food security and stronger regional preparedness.  In closing, Ebola is an unforgiving and a frightening disease.  But, it can be defeated if we work together, in solidarity and with effective coordination.

Every hour counts.  Every contribution counts.  The people of the world are watching.  The people of West Africa now to a great deal depend on us.  Although, of course, national ownership is absolutely crucial.  Let us give them hope.  Let us be at their side.  Let us end this crisis swiftly and decisively.