WEBVTT 00:00:00.697 --> 00:00:05.383 When I was invited to give this talk a couple of months ago, 00:00:05.383 --> 00:00:08.893 we discussed a number of titles with the organizers, 00:00:08.893 --> 00:00:12.308 and a lot of different items were kicked around and were discussed. 00:00:12.308 --> 00:00:14.349 But nobody suggested this one, 00:00:14.349 --> 00:00:17.278 and the reason for that was two months ago, 00:00:17.278 --> 00:00:20.190 Ebola was escalating exponentially 00:00:20.190 --> 00:00:24.553 and spreading over wider geographic areas than we had ever seen, 00:00:24.553 --> 00:00:27.822 and the world was terrified, concerned and alarmed 00:00:27.822 --> 00:00:32.790 by this disease, in a way we've not seen in recent history. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:32.790 --> 00:00:38.960 But today, I can stand here and I can talk to you about beating Ebola 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:42.651 because of people whom you've never heard of, 00:00:42.656 --> 00:00:49.815 people like Peter Clement, a Liberian doctor who's working in Lofa County, 00:00:49.815 --> 00:00:55.294 a place that many of you have never heard of, probably, in Liberia. 00:00:55.294 --> 00:00:57.684 The reason that Lofa County is so important 00:00:57.684 --> 00:01:00.115 is because about five months ago, 00:01:00.115 --> 00:01:04.533 when the epidemic was just starting to escalate, 00:01:04.533 --> 00:01:09.477 Lofa County was right at the center, the epicenter of this epidemic. 00:01:09.477 --> 00:01:13.222 At that time, MSF and the treatment center there, 00:01:13.222 --> 00:01:16.097 they were seeing dozens of patients every single day, 00:01:16.097 --> 00:01:20.345 and these patients, these communities were becoming more and more terrified 00:01:20.345 --> 00:01:24.713 as time went by, with this disease and what it was doing to their families, 00:01:24.713 --> 00:01:28.329 to their communities, to their children, to their relatives. 00:01:28.329 --> 00:01:33.092 And so Peter Clement was charged with driving that 12-hour-long rough road 00:01:33.092 --> 00:01:37.339 from Monrovia, the capital, up to Lofa County, 00:01:37.339 --> 00:01:41.701 to try and help bring control to the escalating epidemic there. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:41.701 --> 00:01:47.063 And what Peter found when he arrived was the terror that I just mentioned to you. 00:01:47.063 --> 00:01:51.304 So he sat down with the local chiefs, and he listened. 00:01:51.304 --> 00:01:54.945 And what he heard was heartbreaking. 00:01:54.945 --> 00:01:59.279 He heard about the devastation and the desperation 00:01:59.279 --> 00:02:02.578 of people affected by this disease. 00:02:02.578 --> 00:02:04.656 He heard the heartbreaking stories 00:02:04.656 --> 00:02:08.103 about not just the damage that Ebola did to people, 00:02:08.103 --> 00:02:11.299 but what it did to families and what it did to communities. 00:02:12.589 --> 00:02:16.999 And he listened to the local chiefs there and what they told him -- 00:02:16.999 --> 00:02:20.443 They said, "When our children are sick, when our children are dying, 00:02:20.443 --> 00:02:24.247 we can't hold them at a time when we want to be closest to them. 00:02:24.247 --> 00:02:28.937 When our relatives die, we can't take care of them as our tradition demands. 00:02:28.937 --> 00:02:31.617 We are not allowed to wash the bodies to bury them 00:02:31.617 --> 00:02:34.801 the way our communities and our rituals demand. 00:02:34.801 --> 00:02:38.208 And for this reason, they were deeply disturbed, deeply alarmed 00:02:38.208 --> 00:02:41.995 and the entire epidemic was unraveling in front of them. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:41.995 --> 00:02:44.911 People were turning on the healthcare workers who had come, 00:02:44.911 --> 00:02:48.265 the heroes who had come to try and help save the community, 00:02:48.265 --> 00:02:53.184 to help work with the community, and they were unable to access them. 00:02:53.184 --> 00:02:58.402 And what happened then was Peter explained to the leaders. 00:02:58.402 --> 00:03:01.137 The leaders listened. They turned the tables. 00:03:01.137 --> 00:03:04.744 And Peter explained what Ebola was. He explained what the disease was. 00:03:04.744 --> 00:03:07.019 He explained what it did to their communities. 00:03:07.019 --> 00:03:12.177 And he explained that Ebola threatened everything that made us human. 00:03:12.177 --> 00:03:16.563 Ebola means you can't hold your children the way you would in this situation. 00:03:16.563 --> 00:03:18.873 You can't bury your dead the way that you would. 00:03:18.873 --> 00:03:23.516 You have to trust these people in these space suits to do that for you. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:23.516 --> 00:03:26.865 And ladies and gentlemen, what happened then was rather extraordinary: 00:03:26.865 --> 00:03:30.111 The community and the health workers, Peter, they sat down together 00:03:30.111 --> 00:03:35.168 and they put together a new plan for controlling Ebola in Lofa County. 00:03:35.168 --> 00:03:39.642 And the reason that this is such an important story, ladies and gentlemen, 00:03:39.642 --> 00:03:44.736 is because today, this county, which is right at the center of this epidemic 00:03:44.736 --> 00:03:47.563 you've been watching, you've been seeing in the newspapers, 00:03:47.563 --> 00:03:51.306 you've been seeing on the television screens, 00:03:51.306 --> 00:03:57.393 today Lofa County is nearly eight weeks without seeing a single case of Ebola. 00:03:57.393 --> 00:04:04.439 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:04.449 --> 00:04:07.872 Now, this doesn't mean that the job is done, obviously. 00:04:07.872 --> 00:04:11.128 There's still a huge risk that there will be additional cases there. 00:04:11.128 --> 00:04:14.392 But what it does teach us is that Ebola can be beaten. 00:04:14.392 --> 00:04:16.049 That's the key thing. 00:04:16.049 --> 00:04:17.216 Even on this scale, 00:04:17.216 --> 00:04:21.113 even with the rapid kind of growth that we saw in this environment here, 00:04:21.113 --> 00:04:24.571 we now know Ebola can be beaten. 00:04:24.571 --> 00:04:28.562 When communities come together with health care workers, work together, 00:04:28.562 --> 00:04:31.235 that's when this disease can be stopped. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:31.235 --> 00:04:34.885 But how did Ebola end up in Lofa County in the first place? 00:04:34.885 --> 00:04:39.577 Well, for that, we have to go back 12 months, to the start of this epidemic. 00:04:39.577 --> 00:04:42.828 And as many of you know, this virus went undetected, 00:04:42.828 --> 00:04:46.803 it evaded detection for three or four months when it began. 00:04:46.803 --> 00:04:49.466 That's because this is not a disease of West Africa, 00:04:49.466 --> 00:04:52.611 it's a disease of Central Africa, half a continent away. 00:04:52.611 --> 00:04:54.547 People hadn't seen the disease before; 00:04:54.547 --> 00:04:57.156 health workers hadn't seen the disease before. 00:04:57.156 --> 00:04:59.324 They didn't know what they were dealing with, 00:04:59.324 --> 00:05:01.383 and to make it even more complicated, 00:05:01.383 --> 00:05:05.951 the virus itself was causing a symptom, a type of a presentation 00:05:05.951 --> 00:05:08.216 that wasn't classical of the disease. 00:05:08.216 --> 00:05:12.631 So people didn't even recognize the disease, people who knew Ebola. 00:05:12.631 --> 00:05:16.490 For that reason it evaded detection for some time, NOTE Paragraph 00:05:16.490 --> 00:05:19.660 But contrary to public belief sometimes these days, 00:05:19.660 --> 00:05:25.175 once the virus was detected, there was a rapid surge in of support. 00:05:25.175 --> 00:05:30.236 MSF rapidly set up an Ebola treatment center, as many of you know, in the area. 00:05:30.236 --> 00:05:33.330 The World Health Organization and the partners that it works with 00:05:33.330 --> 00:05:37.005 deployed eventually hundreds of people over the next two months 00:05:37.005 --> 00:05:39.393 to be able to help track the virus. 00:05:39.393 --> 00:05:43.424 The problem, ladies and gentlemen, is by then, this virus, 00:05:43.424 --> 00:05:46.977 well known now as Ebola, had spread too far. 00:05:46.977 --> 00:05:50.186 It had already outstripped what was one of the largest responses 00:05:50.186 --> 00:05:53.995 that had been mounted so far to an Ebola outbreak. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:53.995 --> 00:05:56.403 By the middle of the year, not just Guinea 00:05:56.403 --> 00:06:00.366 but now Sierra Leone and Liberia were also infected. 00:06:00.366 --> 00:06:05.233 As the virus was spreading geographically, the numbers were increasing 00:06:05.233 --> 00:06:10.289 and at this time, not only were hundreds of people infected 00:06:10.289 --> 00:06:12.168 and dying of the disease, 00:06:12.168 --> 00:06:14.907 but as importantly, the front line responders, 00:06:14.907 --> 00:06:17.750 the people who had gone to try and help, 00:06:17.750 --> 00:06:20.892 the health care workers, the other responders 00:06:20.892 --> 00:06:23.498 were also sick and dying by the dozens. 00:06:23.934 --> 00:06:26.882 The presidents of these countries recognized the emergencies. 00:06:26.882 --> 00:06:30.422 They met right around that time, they agreed on common action 00:06:30.422 --> 00:06:34.640 and they put together an emergency joint operation center in Conakry 00:06:34.640 --> 00:06:38.960 to try and work together to finish this disease and get it stopped, 00:06:38.960 --> 00:06:41.712 to implement the strategies we talked about. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:42.242 --> 00:06:46.199 But what happened then was something we had never seen before with Ebola. 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:49.785 What happened then was the virus, or someone sick with the virus, 00:06:49.785 --> 00:06:53.181 boarded an airplane, flew to another country, 00:06:53.181 --> 00:06:57.323 and for the first time, we saw in another distant country 00:06:57.323 --> 00:06:59.879 the virus pop up again. 00:06:59.879 --> 00:07:04.286 This time it was in Nigeria, in the teeming metropolis of Lagos, 00:07:04.286 --> 00:07:06.245 21 million people. 00:07:06.245 --> 00:07:09.228 Now the virus was in that environment. 00:07:09.228 --> 00:07:12.768 And as you can anticipate, there was international alarm, 00:07:12.768 --> 00:07:16.536 international concern on a scale that we hadn't seen in recent years 00:07:16.536 --> 00:07:18.990 caused by a disease like this. 00:07:18.990 --> 00:07:23.630 The World Health Organization immediately called together an expert panel, 00:07:23.630 --> 00:07:27.251 looked at the situation, declared an international emergency. 00:07:27.256 --> 00:07:32.346 And in doing so, the expectation would be that there would be a huge outpouring 00:07:32.346 --> 00:07:35.316 of international assistance to help these countries 00:07:35.316 --> 00:07:39.034 which were in so much trouble and concern at that time. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:39.364 --> 00:07:42.111 But what we saw was something very different. 00:07:42.341 --> 00:07:45.869 There was some great response. 00:07:45.869 --> 00:07:50.630 A number of countries came to assist -- many, many NGOs and others, as you know, 00:07:50.630 --> 00:07:54.046 but at the same time, the opposite happened in many places. 00:07:54.046 --> 00:07:58.161 Alarm escalated, and very soon these countries found themselves 00:07:58.161 --> 00:08:02.556 not receiving the support they needed, but increasingly isolated. 00:08:02.556 --> 00:08:07.290 What we saw was commercial airlines [stopped] flying into these countries 00:08:07.290 --> 00:08:09.881 and people who hadn't even been exposed to the virus 00:08:09.881 --> 00:08:12.043 were no longer allowed to travel. 00:08:12.043 --> 00:08:15.971 This caused not only problems, obviously, for the countries themselves, 00:08:15.971 --> 00:08:18.093 but also for the response. 00:08:18.093 --> 00:08:21.055 Those organizations that were trying to bring people in, 00:08:21.055 --> 00:08:23.261 to try and help them respond to the outbreak, 00:08:23.261 --> 00:08:25.193 they could not get people on airplanes, 00:08:25.193 --> 00:08:28.392 they could not get them into the countries to be able to respond. 00:08:28.392 --> 00:08:30.404 In that situation, ladies and gentleman, 00:08:30.404 --> 00:08:33.639 a virus like Ebola takes advantage. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:38.577 And what we saw then was something also we hadn't seen before. 00:08:38.577 --> 00:08:41.733 Not only did this virus continue in the places 00:08:41.733 --> 00:08:45.324 where they'd already become infected, but then it started to escalate 00:08:45.324 --> 00:08:47.692 and we saw the case numbers that you see here, 00:08:47.692 --> 00:08:50.746 something we'd never seen before on such a scale, 00:08:50.746 --> 00:08:53.783 an exponential increase of Ebola cases 00:08:53.783 --> 00:08:58.024 not just in these countries or the areas already infected in these countries 00:08:58.024 --> 00:09:01.883 but also spreading further and deeper into these countries. 00:09:01.883 --> 00:09:04.947 Ladies and gentleman, this was one of the most concerning 00:09:04.947 --> 00:09:09.772 international emergencies in public health we've ever seen. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:10.502 --> 00:09:12.553 And what happened in these countries then, 00:09:12.553 --> 00:09:16.742 many of you saw, again, on the television, read about in the newspapers, 00:09:16.742 --> 00:09:22.102 we saw the health system start to collapse under the weight of this epidemic. 00:09:22.102 --> 00:09:26.722 We saw the schools begin to close, markets no longer started, 00:09:26.722 --> 00:09:30.042 no longer functioned the way that they should in these countries. 00:09:30.042 --> 00:09:34.161 We saw that misinformation and misperceptions started to spread 00:09:34.161 --> 00:09:37.645 even faster through the communities, which became even more alarmed 00:09:37.645 --> 00:09:39.260 about the situation. 00:09:39.260 --> 00:09:42.844 They started to recoil from those people that you saw in those space suits, 00:09:42.844 --> 00:09:45.091 as they call them, who had come to help them. 00:09:45.091 --> 00:09:48.118 And then the situation deteriorated even further. 00:09:48.118 --> 00:09:50.800 The countries had to declare a state of emergency. 00:09:50.800 --> 00:09:56.205 Large populations needed to be quarantined in some areas, and then riots broke out. 00:09:56.205 --> 00:09:59.975 It was a very, very terrifying situation. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:59.975 --> 00:10:02.834 Around the world, many people began to ask, 00:10:02.834 --> 00:10:06.803 can we ever stop Ebola when it starts to spread like this? 00:10:06.803 --> 00:10:11.255 And they started to ask, how well do we really know this virus? 00:10:11.585 --> 00:10:14.740 The reality is we don't know Ebola extremely well. 00:10:14.740 --> 00:10:18.735 It's a relatively modern disease in terms of what we know about it. 00:10:18.735 --> 00:10:21.020 We've known the disease only for 40 years, 00:10:21.020 --> 00:10:24.502 since it first popped up in Central Africa in 1976. 00:10:24.502 --> 00:10:27.582 But despite that, we do know many things: 00:10:27.582 --> 00:10:31.805 We know that this virus probably survives in a type of a bat. 00:10:31.805 --> 00:10:34.921 We know that it probably enters a human population 00:10:34.921 --> 00:10:37.528 when we come in contact with a wild animal 00:10:37.528 --> 00:10:41.086 that has been infected with the virus and probably sickened by it. 00:10:41.086 --> 00:10:44.307 Then we know that the virus spreads from person to person 00:10:44.307 --> 00:10:46.580 through contaminated body fluids. 00:10:46.580 --> 00:10:48.071 And as you've all seen, 00:10:48.071 --> 00:10:51.553 we know the horrific disease that it then causes in humans, 00:10:51.553 --> 00:10:56.071 where we see this disease cause severe fevers, diarrhea, vomiting, 00:10:56.071 --> 00:11:02.541 and then unfortunately, in 70 percent of the cases or often more, death. 00:11:02.541 --> 00:11:07.884 This is a very dangerous, debilitating, and deadly disease. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:08.344 --> 00:11:12.517 But despite the fact that we've not known this disease for a particularly long time, 00:11:12.517 --> 00:11:17.394 and we don't know everything about it, we do know how to stop this disease. 00:11:17.394 --> 00:11:20.608 There are four things that are critical to stopping Ebola. 00:11:20.608 --> 00:11:24.922 First and foremost, the communities have got to understand this disease, 00:11:24.922 --> 00:11:28.443 they've got to understand how it spreads and how to stop it. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:28.443 --> 00:11:32.519 And then we've got to be able to have systems that can find every single case, 00:11:32.519 --> 00:11:34.525 every contact of those cases, 00:11:34.525 --> 00:11:38.682 and begin to track the transmission chains so that you can stop transmission. 00:11:38.682 --> 00:11:42.304 We have to have treatment centers, specialized Ebola treatment centers, 00:11:42.304 --> 00:11:44.817 where the workers can be protected 00:11:44.817 --> 00:11:49.689 as they try to provide support to the people who are infected, 00:11:49.689 --> 00:11:52.134 so that they might survive the disease. 00:11:52.134 --> 00:11:54.334 And then for those who do die, 00:11:54.334 --> 00:12:00.192 we have to ensure there is a safe, but at the same time dignified, burial process, 00:12:00.192 --> 00:12:04.088 so that there is no spread at that time as well. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:04.798 --> 00:12:09.299 So we do know how to stop Ebola, and these strategies work, ladies and gentlemen. 00:12:09.299 --> 00:12:13.458 The virus was stopped in Nigeria by these four strategies 00:12:13.458 --> 00:12:15.562 and the people implementing them, obviously. 00:12:15.562 --> 00:12:19.584 It was stopped in Senegal, where it had spread, and also in the other countries 00:12:19.584 --> 00:12:23.177 that were affected by this virus, in this outbreak. 00:12:23.177 --> 00:12:27.018 So there's no question that these strategies actually work. 00:12:27.018 --> 00:12:32.326 The big question, ladies and gentlemen, was whether these strategies could work 00:12:32.326 --> 00:12:36.600 on this scale, in this situation, with so many countries affected 00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:40.206 with the kind of exponential growth that you saw. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:40.206 --> 00:12:44.757 That was the big question that we were facing just two or three months ago. 00:12:44.757 --> 00:12:48.801 Today we know the answer to that question. 00:12:48.801 --> 00:12:51.779 And we know that answer because of the extraordinary work 00:12:51.779 --> 00:12:56.546 of an incredible group of NGOs, of governments, of local leaders, 00:12:56.546 --> 00:13:00.932 of U.N. agencies and many humanitarian and other organizations 00:13:00.932 --> 00:13:04.850 that came and joined the fight to try and stop Ebola in West Africa. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:04.850 --> 00:13:08.293 But what had to be done there was slightly different. 00:13:08.293 --> 00:13:11.218 These countries took those strategies I just showed you; 00:13:11.218 --> 00:13:16.624 the community engagement, the case finding, contact tracing, etc., 00:13:16.624 --> 00:13:18.548 and they turned them on their head. 00:13:18.548 --> 00:13:21.481 There was so much disease, they approached it differently. 00:13:21.481 --> 00:13:26.912 What they decided to do was they would first try and slow down this epidemic 00:13:26.912 --> 00:13:31.899 by rapidly building as many beds as possible in specialized treatment centers 00:13:31.899 --> 00:13:37.203 so that they could prevent the disease from spreading from those were infected. 00:13:37.203 --> 00:13:39.652 They would rapidly build out many, many burial teams 00:13:39.652 --> 00:13:41.827 so that they could safely deal with the dead, 00:13:41.827 --> 00:13:44.394 and with that, they would try and slow this outbreak 00:13:44.394 --> 00:13:48.613 to see if it could actually then be controlled using the classic approach 00:13:48.613 --> 00:13:51.364 of case finding and contact tracing. 00:13:51.364 --> 00:13:54.657 And when I went to West Africa about three months ago, 00:13:54.657 --> 00:13:57.669 when I was there what I saw was extraordinary. 00:13:57.669 --> 00:14:02.595 I saw presidents opening emergency operation centers themselves against Ebola 00:14:02.595 --> 00:14:06.363 so that they could personally coordinate and oversee and champion 00:14:06.363 --> 00:14:10.450 this surge of international support to try and stop this disease. 00:14:10.450 --> 00:14:14.001 We saw militaries from within those countries and from far beyond 00:14:14.001 --> 00:14:16.741 coming in to help build Ebola treatment centers 00:14:16.741 --> 00:14:19.991 that could be used to isolate those who were sick. 00:14:24.417 --> 00:14:29.574 to help train the communities so that they could actually safely bury their dead 00:14:19.991 --> 00:14:24.417 We saw the Red Cross movement working with its partner agencies on the ground there 00:14:29.574 --> 00:14:32.132 in a dignified manner themselves. 00:14:32.132 --> 00:14:34.933 And we saw the U.N. agencies, the World Food Program, 00:14:34.933 --> 00:14:36.834 build a tremendous air bridge 00:14:36.834 --> 00:14:40.736 that could get responders to every single corner of these countries rapidly 00:14:40.736 --> 00:14:44.089 to be able to implement the strategies that we just talked about. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:44.089 --> 00:14:47.434 What we saw, ladies and gentlemen, which was probably most impressive, 00:14:47.434 --> 00:14:50.451 was this incredible work by the governments, 00:14:50.451 --> 00:14:53.468 by the leaders in these countries, with the communities, 00:14:53.468 --> 00:14:56.486 to try to ensure people understood this disease, 00:14:56.486 --> 00:15:02.169 understood the extraordinary things they would have to do to try and stop Ebola. 00:15:02.169 --> 00:15:04.462 And as a result, ladies and gentlemen, 00:15:04.462 --> 00:15:08.905 we saw something that we did not know only two or three months earlier, 00:15:08.905 --> 00:15:11.179 whether or not it would be possible. 00:15:11.179 --> 00:15:14.309 What we saw was what you see now in this graph, 00:15:14.309 --> 00:15:17.118 when we took stock on December 1. 00:15:17.118 --> 00:15:20.560 What we saw was we could bend that curve, so to speak, 00:15:20.560 --> 00:15:22.934 change this exponential growth, 00:15:22.934 --> 00:15:27.163 and bring some hope back to the ability to control this outbreak. 00:15:27.163 --> 00:15:31.217 And for this reason, ladies and gentlemen, there's absolutely no question now 00:15:31.217 --> 00:15:37.018 that we can catch up with this outbreak in West Africa and we can beat Ebola. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:37.785 --> 00:15:40.958 The big question, though, that many people are asking, 00:15:40.958 --> 00:15:42.941 even when they saw this curve, they said, 00:15:42.941 --> 00:15:45.845 "Well, hang on a minute -- that's great you can slow it down, 00:15:45.845 --> 00:15:47.896 but can you actually drive it down to zero?" 00:15:47.896 --> 00:15:51.437 We already answered that question back at the beginning of this talk, 00:15:51.437 --> 00:15:55.590 when I spoke about Lofa County in Liberia. 00:15:55.590 --> 00:15:59.016 We told you the story how Lofa County got to a situation 00:15:59.016 --> 00:16:01.829 where they have not seen Ebola for eight weeks. 00:16:01.829 --> 00:16:05.205 But there are similar stories from the other countries as well. 00:16:05.205 --> 00:16:07.451 From Gueckedou in Guinea, 00:16:07.451 --> 00:16:11.959 the first area where the first case was actually diagnosed. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:11.959 --> 00:16:15.373 We've seen very, very few cases in the last couple of months, 00:16:15.373 --> 00:16:19.800 and here in Kenema, in Sierra Leone, another area in the epicenter, 00:16:19.800 --> 00:16:23.061 we have not seen the virus for more than a couple of weeks -- 00:16:23.061 --> 00:16:26.156 way too early to declare victory, obviously, 00:16:26.156 --> 00:16:27.931 but evidence, ladies and gentlemen, 00:16:27.931 --> 00:16:31.556 not only can the response catch up to the disease, 00:16:31.556 --> 00:16:34.722 but this disease can be driven to zero. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:34.722 --> 00:16:38.878 The challenge now, of course, is doing this on the scale needed 00:16:38.878 --> 00:16:44.244 right across these three countries, and that is a huge challenge. 00:16:44.244 --> 00:16:48.949 Because when you've been at something for this long, on this scale, 00:16:48.949 --> 00:16:52.949 two other big threats come in to join the virus. 00:16:52.949 --> 00:16:56.052 The first of those is complacency, 00:16:56.052 --> 00:16:59.475 the risk that as this disease curve starts to bend, 00:16:59.475 --> 00:17:02.739 the media look elsewhere, the world looks elsewhere. 00:17:02.739 --> 00:17:04.371 Complacency always a risk. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:04.371 --> 00:17:08.714 And the other risk, of course, is when you've been working so hard for so long, 00:17:08.714 --> 00:17:12.352 and slept so few hours over the past months, 00:17:12.352 --> 00:17:14.590 people are tired, people become fatigued, 00:17:14.590 --> 00:17:18.660 and these new risks start to creep into the response. 00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:22.940 Ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you today I've just come back from West Africa. 00:17:22.940 --> 00:17:26.640 The people of these countries, the leaders of these countries, 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:28.136 they are not complacent. 00:17:28.136 --> 00:17:31.879 They want to drive Ebola to zero in their countries. 00:17:31.879 --> 00:17:35.664 And these people, yes, they're tired, but they are not fatigued. 00:17:35.664 --> 00:17:37.869 They have an energy, they have a courage, 00:17:37.869 --> 00:17:40.399 they have the strength to get this finished. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:40.399 --> 00:17:43.153 What they need, ladies and gentlemen, at this point, 00:17:43.153 --> 00:17:46.781 is the unwavering support of the international community, 00:17:46.781 --> 00:17:48.189 to stand with them, 00:17:48.189 --> 00:17:53.047 to bolster and bring even more support at this time, to get the job finished. 00:17:53.047 --> 00:17:58.082 Because finishing Ebola right now means turning the tables on this virus, 00:17:58.082 --> 00:17:59.817 and beginning to hunt it. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:59.817 --> 00:18:05.004 Remember, this virus, this whole crisis, rather, started with one case, 00:18:05.004 --> 00:18:07.703 and is going to finish with one case. 00:18:07.703 --> 00:18:12.027 But it will only finish if those countries have got enough epidemiologists, 00:18:12.027 --> 00:18:16.644 enough health workers, enough logisticians and enough other people working with them 00:18:16.644 --> 00:18:20.126 to be able to find every one of those cases, track their contacts 00:18:20.126 --> 00:18:24.220 and make sure that this disease stops once and for all. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:27.557 Ladies and gentleman, Ebola can be beaten. 00:18:27.557 --> 00:18:32.245 Now we need you to take this story out to tell it to the people who will listen 00:18:32.245 --> 00:18:35.457 and educate them on what it means to beat Ebola, 00:18:35.457 --> 00:18:39.189 and more importantly, we need you to advocate with the people 00:18:39.189 --> 00:18:42.743 who can help us bring the resources we need to these countries, 00:18:42.743 --> 00:18:44.517 to beat this disease. 00:18:44.517 --> 00:18:48.699 There are a lot of people out there who will survive and will thrive, 00:18:48.699 --> 00:18:52.101 in part because of what you do to help us beat Ebola. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:52.101 --> 00:18:53.587 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:53.587 --> 00:18:57.474 (Applause)