WHO to review Ebola response amid criticism

(CNN) -- The World Health Organization vowed Saturday to make public a full review of its response to the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa once the crisis is under control.

But the United Nations health agency, which is among those leading the battle against a scourge that has claimed more than 4,500 lives in West Africa, declined to comment on a scathing internal document, cited in an Associated Press report, describing its response as botched and riddled with incompetence.

"Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall," WHO said in the document, according to the Associated Press. "A perfect storm was brewing, ready to burst open in full force."



WHO called the leaked document a first draft that had not been fact-checked or reviewed by its staff as part of its continuing review of the response.

"We cannot divert our limited resources from the urgent response to do a detailed analysis of the past response." WHO said in a statement. "That review will come, but only after this outbreak is over."

The months-long Ebola outbreak in West Africa has reportedly infected 9,200 people, killing 4,555 of them, according to the WHO. Experts have warned that the numbers will climb exponentially if the international response is not shored up.

International efforts

On Saturday, British Prime Minister David Cameron called on the European Union to invest 1 billion Euros ($1.3 billion) and send 2,000 aid workers to fight it.

In Spain, a nurse's assistant who contracted Ebola after caring for a missionary with the virus is being treated at the Carlos III Hospital in Madrid. Teresa Romero Ramos helped treat one of two Spanish missionaries who were brought to the hospital after becoming infected in West Africa.

A special committee set up by the Spanish government to handle the outbreak said Wednesday that 15 people under observation in hospital remained asymptomatic.

Romero was the first person to contract Ebola outside Africa in the current outbreak.

The United States has seen a handful of cases. One patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, has died. Two of his caregivers were infected and are being treated.

Fears of an outbreak in the United States led President Barack Obama to appoint an "Ebola czar." Ron Klain is a former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden and former VP Al Gore.

Klain will drive the response of the country's government agencies to Ebola.

On Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry called on world leaders to contribute far more to the international Ebola response.

Kerry warned that, absent a concerted effort by the international community, "Ebola has the potential to become a scourge like HIV or polio that we will end up fighting -- all of us -- for decades."

The secretary made the remarks to a room of foreign ambassadors at the State Department in Washington. He called on them to use their influence to bring stronger commitments to the Ebola fight, which has plagued Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, and has spread as far as the United States and Europe.

Worldwide there have been confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola in seven affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Spain and the United States), according to the latest World Health Organization figures.

Canada's Public Health Agency, meanwhile, announced Saturday that it will ship 800 vials of an experimental Ebola vaccine to the WHO in Geneva beginning Monday. The results of clinical trials for the vaccine, which started at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland this month, are expected in December.

The vaccine showed promising results in animal research, the agency said.