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Global business leaders join fight against ebola at UN conference
Companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Arcelor Mittal, Google and Facebook help step up global response to Ebola
Business has a critical role to play in tackling the Ebola virus in Africa and preventing it from spreading, a ground-breaking conference at the United Nations has been told.
Executives from international companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Arcelor Mittal, Google and Facebook met with leaders from organisations including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef at the UN’s New York headquarters on Thursday to examine how industry has stepped in to help fight the disease.
They also sought to identify ways to improve current efforts to combat Ebola – which WHO data shows has claimed 6,373 lives in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – and to try to make sure the world is better prepared for future outbreaks.
One of the conference’s key sessions looked at how information technology can be utilised in the fight against Ebola.
One organisation doing this is the Masanga Mentor Ebola Initiative (MMEI), a joint effort between the UK-supported hospital in Sierra Leone and the Mentor Initiative, a British non-governmental organisation, established in Liberia, with international training experience and contacts worldwide.
MMEI, which is being backed by The Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal, uses technology perfected in the video games industry to produce computer training for people in Ebola-affected areas. The system uses interactive programmes that can be understood in local languages and make use of animation to help where adult literacy rates are low.
As well as teaching locals how to respond to the virus, it also teaches infection control to prevent its spread.
Nicolas Mellor, MMEI’s co-founder, said: “The conference is hugely encouraging because it shows international businesses are getting involved and our initiative is a microcosm of what they are trying to achieve there.”
Mr Mellor said the early international response to Ebola failed to understand the scale of outbreak and the threat it posed but the fact that major global companies are now involved shows the risks are now understood.
“The problem with international humanitarian response in the past is that once they move on to the next crisis they tend to leave a vacuum,” he added. “It’s important to create a sustainable legacy and that’s what MMEI is doing.”