Experts criticise WHO delay in sounding alarm over Ebola outbreak

Report suggests World Health Organisation should lose its role in declaring disease outbreaks to be international emergency

The World Health Organisation should be stripped of its role in declaring disease outbreaks to be an international emergency following the catastrophic failure to warn the world of the dangers of Ebola in west Africa last year, according to an independent panel of experts.

The recommendation is made in a report, published in the Lancet medical journal, by 20 experts convened by the Harvard Global Health Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who analysed the response to the Ebola epidemic.