Panel of experts to assess WHO's response in Ebola outbreak

Dr. Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, has commissioned a panel of outside independent experts, to undertake an assessment on all aspects of WHO’s response in the Ebola outbreak.

A statement issued by the WHO and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said this was in response to a resolution passed during the Ebola Special Session of the Executive Board in January.

It said Dame Barbara Stocking would chair the panel.

She was formerly Chief Executive of Oxfam GB (2001-13), and during this time, led major humanitarian responses.

Currently she is the President of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

The other panel members are Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfun, Director-General of the National Institute for Biomedical Research, Democratic Republic of Congo; Dr Faisal Shuaib, Head of the National Ebola Emergency Operations Centre, Nigeria; and Dr Carmencita Alberto-Banatin, independent consultant and adviser on health emergencies and disasters, Philippines.

The rest are Professor Julio Frenk, Dean of the Faculty, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; and Professor Ilona Kickbusch, Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

The statement said the panel would present a first progress report on its work to the 68th World Health Assembly in May.