WEBVTT 00:00:01.343 --> 00:00:03.509 When I was asked to - invited, rather, 00:00:03.515 --> 00:00:06.283 to give this talk a couple of months ago 00:00:06.291 --> 00:00:09.742 we discussed a number of titles with the organizers 00:00:09.742 --> 00:00:13.291 and a lot of different items were kicked around and were discussed, 00:00:13.291 --> 00:00:16.697 but nobody suggested this one that you see here today 00:00:16.743 --> 00:00:19.575 and the reason for that was, two months ago 00:00:19.575 --> 00:00:22.845 ebola was escalating exponentially 00:00:22.845 --> 00:00:26.410 and spreading over wider geographic areas than we had ever seen 00:00:26.410 --> 00:00:30.237 and the world was terrified, concerned and alarmed 00:00:30.237 --> 00:00:35.075 by this disease, in a way we've not seen in recent history. 00:00:35.083 --> 00:00:39.172 But today, I can stand here and I can talk to you 00:00:39.172 --> 00:00:41.501 about beating ebola, 00:00:41.501 --> 00:00:44.712 because of people whom you've never heard of, 00:00:44.712 --> 00:00:47.906 people like Peter Clement, 00:00:49.786 --> 00:00:54.956 a Liberian doctor, who's working in Lofa county, 00:00:55.102 --> 00:01:00.619 a place that many of you have never heard of, probably, in Liberia. 00:01:01.736 --> 00:01:04.435 The reason that Lofa county is so important 00:01:04.435 --> 00:01:07.218 is because about five months ago, 00:01:07.218 --> 00:01:10.741 when the epidemic was just starting to escalate, 00:01:10.741 --> 00:01:15.596 Lofa county was right at the center, the epicenter of this epidemic. 00:01:15.596 --> 00:01:17.832 At that time, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) 00:01:17.832 --> 00:01:19.698 and the treatment center there, 00:01:19.698 --> 00:01:22.304 they were seeing dozens of patients every single day, 00:01:22.304 --> 00:01:26.646 and these patients, these communities were becoming more and more terrified 00:01:26.646 --> 00:01:31.042 as time went by, with this disease and what it was doing to their families, 00:01:31.042 --> 00:01:34.729 to the communities, to the children, to the relatives. 00:01:34.729 --> 00:01:39.607 And so Peter Clement was charged with driving that 12 hour long rough road, 00:01:39.607 --> 00:01:43.106 from Monrovia, the capital, up to Lofa county, 00:01:43.106 --> 00:01:48.451 to try and help bring control to the escalating epidemic there. 00:01:48.451 --> 00:01:53.927 And what Peter found when he arrived was a terror that I just mentioned to you. 00:01:53.927 --> 00:01:57.470 So he sat down with the local chiefs, and he listened. 00:01:58.045 --> 00:02:02.065 And what he heard was heartbreaking. 00:02:02.065 --> 00:02:06.094 He heard about the devastation and the desperation 00:02:06.094 --> 00:02:09.017 of people affected by this disease. 00:02:09.017 --> 00:02:11.765 He heard the heartbreaking stories about 00:02:11.765 --> 00:02:14.607 not just the damage that ebola did to people, 00:02:14.607 --> 00:02:17.946 but what it did to families and what it did to communities. 00:02:19.156 --> 00:02:23.119 And he listened to the chiefs, the local chiefs there 00:02:23.119 --> 00:02:24.748 and what they told him - they said 00:02:24.748 --> 00:02:27.528 "When our children are sick, when our children are dying, 00:02:27.528 --> 00:02:30.797 we can't hold them at a time when we want to be closest to them. 00:02:30.797 --> 00:02:35.812 When our relatives die, we can't take care of them as our tradition demands 00:02:35.812 --> 00:02:38.381 we are not allowed to wash the bodies to bury them 00:02:38.381 --> 00:02:41.401 the way our communities and our rituals demand. 00:02:41.401 --> 00:02:44.920 And for this reason, they were deeply disturbed, deeply alarmed 00:02:44.920 --> 00:02:48.630 and the entire epidemic was unraveling in front of them. 00:02:48.630 --> 00:02:51.804 People were turning on the health care workers who had come, 00:02:51.804 --> 00:02:55.281 the heroes who come to try and help save and the community 00:02:55.281 --> 00:02:59.245 to help work with the community, And they were unable to access them. 00:02:59.734 --> 00:03:06.247 And what happened then was Peter explained to the leaders, 00:03:06.247 --> 00:03:08.908 the leaders listened. They turned the tables. 00:03:08.933 --> 00:03:12.764 And Peter explained what ebola was. He explained what the disease was, 00:03:12.764 --> 00:03:15.013 he explained what it did to their communities. 00:03:15.013 --> 00:03:19.865 And he explained that ebola threatened everything that made us human. 00:03:19.865 --> 00:03:24.337 Ebola means you can't hold your children the way you would in this situation. 00:03:24.337 --> 00:03:26.791 You can't bury your dead the way that you would. 00:03:26.791 --> 00:03:31.222 You have to trust these people in the space suits to do that for you. 00:03:31.222 --> 00:03:34.591 And ladies and gentlemen, what happened then was rather extraordinary; 00:03:34.591 --> 00:03:38.218 the community, health workers, Peter, they sat down together 00:03:38.218 --> 00:03:42.717 and they put together a new plan for controlling ebola in that Lofa county. 00:03:42.717 --> 00:03:47.208 And the reason that this is such an important story, ladies and gentlemen, 00:03:47.208 --> 00:03:52.672 is because today, this County, which is right at the center of this epidemic 00:03:52.672 --> 00:03:55.667 you've been watching, you've been seeing on the newspapers, 00:03:55.667 --> 00:03:59.330 you've been seeing on the television screens, 00:03:59.330 --> 00:04:05.116 tody, loafer County is nearly eight weeks without seeing a single case of ebola. 00:04:05.116 --> 00:04:12.203 (Applause) 00:04:12.203 --> 00:04:15.314 Now this doesn't mean that the job is done obviously. 00:04:15.314 --> 00:04:18.636 There still are huge risk that there will be additional cases there. 00:04:18.636 --> 00:04:22.411 But what it does teach us is that ebola can be beaten. 00:04:22.411 --> 00:04:23.710 That's the key thing. 00:04:23.710 --> 00:04:27.313 Even on the scale, even with the rapid kind of growth that we saw 00:04:27.313 --> 00:04:31.999 in this environment here, we now know ebola can be beaten. 00:04:31.999 --> 00:04:36.238 When communities come together with health care workers work together, 00:04:36.238 --> 00:04:38.581 that's when this disease can be stopped. 00:04:38.581 --> 00:04:42.266 But how did ebola end up in Lofa county in the first place? 00:04:42.266 --> 00:04:47.146 Well, for that, we have to go back 12 months, to the start of this epidemic. 00:04:47.146 --> 00:04:51.009 And as many you know, this virus went undetected, 00:04:51.009 --> 00:04:54.530 evaded the detection for 3 or 4 months when it began. 00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:57.439 That's because this is not a disease of West Africa, 00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:00.650 it's a disease of Central Africa, half a continent away. 00:05:00.650 --> 00:05:02.549 People hadn't seen the disease before, 00:05:02.549 --> 00:05:04.916 health workers hadn't seen the disease before -- 00:05:04.916 --> 00:05:07.176 they didn't know what they were dealing with, 00:05:07.176 --> 00:05:09.099 and they make it even more complicated, 00:05:09.099 --> 00:05:13.549 the virus itself was causing a symptom, is a type of a presentation 00:05:13.549 --> 00:05:16.147 that wasn't classical of the disease. 00:05:16.147 --> 00:05:20.391 So people didn't even recognize a disease, people who knew ebola 00:05:20.391 --> 00:05:24.168 For that reason it evaded a detection for some time, 00:05:24.168 --> 00:05:27.328 But contrary to public belief sometimes these days, 00:05:27.355 --> 00:05:33.341 once the virus was detected, there was a rapid surge in up support. 00:05:33.341 --> 00:05:36.641 MSF rep relief set up the ebola treatment center 00:05:36.641 --> 00:05:39.907 as many of you know, in the area the World Health Organization 00:05:39.907 --> 00:05:42.136 and the partners that worked with deplored 00:05:42.136 --> 00:05:44.986 and eventually hundreds of people over the next two months 00:05:44.986 --> 00:05:47.660 to be able to help track the virus. 00:05:47.660 --> 00:05:51.174 The problem is, ladies and gentlemen, is by then, this virus, 00:05:51.174 --> 00:05:54.318 well known now as ebola, had spread too far. 00:05:54.318 --> 00:05:58.218 It had already outstripped what was one of the largest responses 00:05:58.218 --> 00:06:01.588 that had been mounted so far toward ebola outbreak. 00:06:01.588 --> 00:06:04.478 By the middle of the year, not just Guinea 00:06:04.478 --> 00:06:08.329 but now Sierra Leone and Liberia were also infected. 00:06:08.329 --> 00:06:12.632 And the virus was spreading geographically the numbers were increasing 00:06:12.632 --> 00:06:17.943 and at this time, not only were hundreds of people infected 00:06:17.943 --> 00:06:20.833 and dying of the disease, but as importantly, 00:06:20.834 --> 00:06:22.847 the front line responders, 00:06:22.847 --> 00:06:25.688 the people who to try and help the people, 00:06:25.688 --> 00:06:28.834 the health care workers, the other responders 00:06:28.834 --> 00:06:31.950 were also sick and dying by the dozens. 00:06:31.950 --> 00:06:34.927 The presidents of these countries recognized emergencies 00:06:34.927 --> 00:06:38.224 they met right around that time, they agreed on common action 00:06:38.229 --> 00:06:41.986 and they put together an emergency joint operation center in Conakry 00:06:41.986 --> 00:06:46.993 to try and work together to finish this disease and get it stopped, 00:06:46.993 --> 00:06:49.720 to implement the strategies we talked about. 00:06:49.732 --> 00:06:53.792 But what happened then was something we had never seen before with ebola. 00:06:53.843 --> 00:06:57.970 What happened then was the virus, someone sick with the virus, 00:06:57.970 --> 00:07:00.860 boarded an airplane, flew to another country, 00:07:01.022 --> 00:07:05.000 and for the first time, we saw in another distant country 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:07.720 the virus pop up again. 00:07:07.720 --> 00:07:12.184 This time it was in Nigeria in the teemy metropolis of Legos 00:07:12.184 --> 00:07:13.884 21 million people. 00:07:14.174 --> 00:07:16.964 Now the virus was in that environment. 00:07:17.014 --> 00:07:20.784 And as you can anticipate, there was international alarm, 00:07:20.836 --> 00:07:24.466 international concern on a scale that we haven't seen in recent years 00:07:24.475 --> 00:07:26.865 caused by a disease like this. 00:07:26.915 --> 00:07:31.065 The World Health Organization immediately called together an expert panel, 00:07:31.083 --> 00:07:34.393 looked at the situation, declared an international emergency. 00:07:34.481 --> 00:07:40.235 And in doing so, the expectations would be that there be a huge outpouring of 00:07:40.235 --> 00:07:44.665 international assistance to help these countries which were in so much trouble 00:07:44.687 --> 00:07:47.729 and concerns at that time. 00:07:47.729 --> 00:07:49.972 But what we saw was something very different. 00:07:49.972 --> 00:07:54.042 There was some great response. 00:07:54.060 --> 00:07:58.402 A number of countries came to assist, many many NGOs and others as you know, 00:07:58.402 --> 00:08:01.812 but at the same time, the opposite happened in many places. 00:08:01.812 --> 00:08:07.902 Alarm through -- alarm escalated and very soon these countries found themselves 00:08:07.984 --> 00:08:12.194 not receiving the support they needed but increasingly isolated. 00:08:12.257 --> 00:08:16.687 What we saw with commercial airlines started flying into these countries 00:08:17.099 --> 00:08:20.059 and people who hadn't even been exposed to the virus 00:08:20.087 --> 00:08:22.213 were no longer allowed to travel. 00:08:22.213 --> 00:08:25.944 This cause not only problems, obviously, for the countries themselves, 00:08:25.944 --> 00:08:27.714 but also for the response. 00:08:27.995 --> 00:08:30.880 Those organizations that we're trying to bring people in, 00:08:30.880 --> 00:08:33.033 to try and help them respond to the outbreak 00:08:33.033 --> 00:08:35.104 they could not get people on airplanes, 00:08:35.104 --> 00:08:38.355 they couldn't get in to the countries to be able to respond. 00:08:38.355 --> 00:08:40.736 In that situation, ladies and gentleman, 00:08:40.764 --> 00:08:44.384 a virus like ebola takes advantage. 00:08:44.406 --> 00:08:48.726 And what we saw then was something also we hadn't seen before. 00:08:48.744 --> 00:08:51.440 Not only did this virus continue in the places 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:55.450 where they'd already become infected, but then it started to escalate 00:08:55.499 --> 00:08:57.779 and we saw the case numbers that you see here, 00:08:57.854 --> 00:09:00.804 something we never seen before on such a scale 00:09:00.821 --> 00:09:03.631 and exponential increase ebola cases 00:09:03.663 --> 00:09:07.963 not just in these countries or the areas already infected in these countries 00:09:07.963 --> 00:09:12.043 but also spreading further and deeper into these countries. 00:09:12.088 --> 00:09:14.275 Ladies and gentleman, this was one of the 00:09:14.275 --> 00:09:19.845 most concerning international emergencies in public health we've ever seen. 00:09:19.995 --> 00:09:23.535 And what happened in these countries, and many of you saw, again, 00:09:23.535 --> 00:09:25.955 on the televisions, read about in the newspapers, 00:09:26.257 --> 00:09:31.787 we saw the health system start to collapse under the weight of this epidemic. 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:36.699 We saw the schools begin to close, markets no longer started, 00:09:36.736 --> 00:09:40.286 no longer functioned the way that they should in these countries. 00:09:40.397 --> 00:09:44.397 We saw the misinformation and the misperceptions started to spread 00:09:44.423 --> 00:09:47.751 even faster through the communities which became even more alarmed 00:09:47.751 --> 00:09:49.091 about the situation. 00:09:49.091 --> 00:09:52.561 They started to recoil from those people that you saw in the space suits, 00:09:52.561 --> 00:09:55.141 as they call them, would come to help them. 00:09:55.153 --> 00:09:58.323 And then the situation deteriorated even further. 00:09:58.371 --> 00:10:01.031 The countries had to declare a state of emergency. 00:10:01.056 --> 00:10:04.116 Large populations need to be quarantined in some areas 00:10:04.116 --> 00:10:09.986 and then riots broke out. It was a very very terrifying situation 00:10:10.034 --> 00:10:13.094 And the world many people began to ask 00:10:13.094 --> 00:10:16.714 can we ever stop ebola when it starts to spread like this 00:10:16.755 --> 00:10:20.755 and they started to ask how well do we really know this virus. 00:10:21.512 --> 00:10:24.472 The reality is we don't know ebola extremely well. 00:10:24.505 --> 00:10:28.555 It's a relatively modern disease in terms of what we know about it 00:10:28.562 --> 00:10:31.862 we've known the disease only for forty years since it first popped up 00:10:31.872 --> 00:10:34.995 in Central Africa, 1976. 00:10:34.995 --> 00:10:38.445 But despite that we do know many things, 00:10:38.479 --> 00:10:41.689 we know that this virus probably survives in a type of a bat, 00:10:41.784 --> 00:10:45.204 we know that it probably enters a human population 00:10:45.209 --> 00:10:48.129 when we come in contact with the wild animal that has been 00:10:48.135 --> 00:10:51.495 infected with the virus and probably sickened by it. 00:10:51.538 --> 00:10:54.518 Then we know that the virus spreads from person to person 00:10:54.534 --> 00:10:56.964 through contaminated body fluids. 00:10:56.988 --> 00:10:59.575 And as you've all seen we know the horrific disease at 00:10:59.575 --> 00:11:03.495 it then causes in humans where we see this disease cause 00:11:03.558 --> 00:11:06.285 severe fevers, diarrhea, vomiting, and then 00:11:06.285 --> 00:11:11.945 unfortunately, in 70% of the cases or probably more, death. 00:11:12.487 --> 00:11:17.797 This is a very dangerous, debilitating, and deadly disease. 00:11:18.116 --> 00:11:22.476 But despite the fact that we've not known this disease for a particularly long time, 00:11:22.476 --> 00:11:26.806 and we don't know everything about it, we do know how to stop this disease. 00:11:26.861 --> 00:11:30.070 This four things that are critical to stopping ebola. 00:11:30.070 --> 00:11:34.940 First and foremost, the communities have got to understand this disease, 00:11:34.991 --> 00:11:38.600 they've got to understand how it spreads and how to stop it. 00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:42.607 And then we've got to be able to have a system that could find every single case 00:11:42.607 --> 00:11:46.527 every contact of those cases and begin to track to transmission chains 00:11:46.527 --> 00:11:48.957 so that you can stop transmission. 00:11:48.957 --> 00:11:52.387 We have to have treatment center specialized ebola treatment centers, 00:11:52.461 --> 00:11:57.471 where the workers can be protected as they try to provide support 00:11:57.495 --> 00:11:59.624 to these add to the people who are infected, 00:11:59.624 --> 00:12:02.213 so that they might survive the disease 00:12:02.213 --> 00:12:05.834 and then for those who do die, we have to ensure 00:12:05.850 --> 00:12:09.930 there is a safe, but at the same time, dignified burial process, 00:12:09.963 --> 00:12:13.299 so that there is no spread at that time as well. 00:12:13.299 --> 00:12:18.929 So we do know how to stop ebola and these strategies work, ladies and gentlemen, 00:12:18.955 --> 00:12:23.085 the virus was stopped in Nigeria by these four strategies 00:12:23.143 --> 00:12:25.600 and the people implementing them obviously, 00:12:25.600 --> 00:12:29.380 it was stopped in Senegal where it had spread, and also in the other countries 00:12:29.380 --> 00:12:33.160 that were affected by this virus, in this outbreak. 00:12:33.160 --> 00:12:37.346 So there's no question that these strategies actually work. 00:12:37.346 --> 00:12:42.529 The big question, ladies and gentlemen, was whether these strategies could work 00:12:42.558 --> 00:12:46.598 on this scale, in this situation, with so many countries affected with 00:12:46.625 --> 00:12:50.051 the kinda exponential growth that you saw. 00:12:50.051 --> 00:12:54.981 That was a big question that we were facing just two for three months ago. 00:12:55.096 --> 00:12:59.096 Today, we know the answer to that question. 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:02.516 We know that answer because of the extraordinary work 00:13:02.516 --> 00:13:06.545 of incredible group of NGOs and governments, of local leaders, 00:13:06.545 --> 00:13:11.155 of UN agencies and many humanitarian and other organizations 00:13:11.197 --> 00:13:15.457 that came and joined the fight, try and stop ebola in West Africa. 00:13:15.629 --> 00:13:18.669 But what had to be done there was slightly different. 00:13:18.680 --> 00:13:22.010 These countries took those strategies I just showed you; 00:13:22.028 --> 00:13:26.078 the communities and community engagement the case finding, contact tracing, etc. 00:13:26.115 --> 00:13:28.955 and they turn them on their head. 00:13:28.988 --> 00:13:31.778 There was so much disease they approached it differently. 00:13:31.778 --> 00:13:37.208 What they decided to do was they would first try and slow down this epidemic 00:13:37.296 --> 00:13:41.646 by rapidly building as many beds as possible so that they specialized 00:13:41.676 --> 00:13:45.669 treatment centers so that they could control, they could prevent the disease 00:13:45.669 --> 00:13:47.433 from spreading from those were infected. 00:13:47.433 --> 00:13:50.237 They would rapidly build out many many burial teams so that 00:13:50.237 --> 00:13:52.201 they could safely deal with the dead. 00:13:52.201 --> 00:13:55.499 With that, they were trying to slow this outbreakts see if it could 00:13:55.499 --> 00:13:58.925 actually then be controlled using the classic approach 00:13:58.925 --> 00:14:01.341 of case finding in contact tracing. 00:14:01.341 --> 00:14:05.998 And when I went to West Africa about three months ago when I was there, 00:14:05.998 --> 00:14:08.358 what I saw was extraordinary 00:14:08.370 --> 00:14:12.770 I saw presidents opening emergency operation centers themselves against ebola 00:14:12.790 --> 00:14:17.110 so that they could personally coordinate and oversee in champion 00:14:17.153 --> 00:14:20.573 this surge of international support to try and stop this disease. 00:14:20.593 --> 00:14:24.604 We saw military's from within those countries in from far beyond 00:14:24.604 --> 00:14:27.137 coming in to help build ebola treatment centers 00:14:27.137 --> 00:14:30.210 that could be used to isolate those who are sick. 00:14:35.158 --> 00:14:38.343 to help train the community so that they could actually 00:14:30.210 --> 00:14:35.158 We saw the Red Cross movement working with its partner agencies on the ground there 00:14:38.343 --> 00:14:42.683 safely bury their dead in a dignified manner themselves, 00:14:42.882 --> 00:14:47.282 and we saw the UN agencies the World Food Programme build a tremendous 00:14:47.354 --> 00:14:51.329 air bridge that could get responders to every single corner at these countries 00:14:51.329 --> 00:14:54.899 rapidly to be able to implement the strategies that we just talked about. 00:14:55.022 --> 00:14:58.922 What we saw, ladies and gentlemen, which is probably most impressive 00:14:58.965 --> 00:15:03.025 was just incredible work by the government by the leaders in these countries 00:15:03.108 --> 00:15:08.176 with the communities to try insure people understood this disease, 00:15:08.206 --> 00:15:12.786 understood the extraordinary things they would have to do to try and stop ebola. 00:15:12.859 --> 00:15:17.869 And as a result, ladies and gentlemen, we saw something that we did not know 00:15:17.898 --> 00:15:22.138 only two or three months earlier whether or not it would be possible. 00:15:22.175 --> 00:15:26.034 What we saw was what you see now in this graph, 00:15:26.034 --> 00:15:28.333 when we took stock on the first of December. 00:15:28.333 --> 00:15:31.907 what we saw was we could bend that curve, so to speak, 00:15:31.907 --> 00:15:35.373 change this exponential growth and bring some hope back 00:15:35.373 --> 00:15:38.003 to the ability to control this outbreak. 00:15:38.003 --> 00:15:40.013 And for this reason, ladies and gentlemen, 00:15:40.021 --> 00:15:44.451 there's absolutely no question now that we can catch up with this outbreak 00:15:44.475 --> 00:15:47.715 in West Africa, and we can beat ebola. 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:52.482 The big question though is that many people are asking even when 00:15:52.482 --> 00:15:54.519 they saw this curve, they said, "hang on a minute, that's great 00:15:54.519 --> 00:15:58.457 you can slow it down, but can you actually drive it down to zero?" 00:15:58.457 --> 00:16:02.443 Now we already answered that question at right back the beginning of this talk 00:16:02.443 --> 00:16:08.603 when I spoke about Lofa county in Liberia, 00:16:08.625 --> 00:16:13.063 we told you the story haw Lofa county got to a situation where they have 00:16:13.063 --> 00:16:15.896 not seen ebola for eight weeks. But this similar stories 00:16:15.896 --> 00:16:20.566 from the other countries as well, from GuĂŠckĂŠdou in Guinea, 00:16:20.566 --> 00:16:24.930 the first area where the first case was actually diagnosed. 00:16:24.947 --> 00:16:29.374 We've seen very very few cases in the last couple of months, 00:16:29.374 --> 00:16:34.175 and here in Kenema, in Sierra Leone, another area in the epicenter, 00:16:34.175 --> 00:16:37.885 we have not seen the virus for more than a couple of weeks -- 00:16:37.886 --> 00:16:42.386 way too early to declare victory obviously but evidence, ladies and gentlemen, 00:16:42.429 --> 00:16:47.129 not only can the response catch up to the disease but this disease 00:16:47.133 --> 00:16:51.633 can be driven to zero. The challenge now, of course, is doing this 00:16:51.633 --> 00:16:56.743 on the scale needed right across these three countries, 00:16:56.761 --> 00:17:01.535 and that is a huge challenge. Because when you've been at something 00:17:01.535 --> 00:17:07.545 for this long, on this scale, two other big threats come in to join the virus. 00:17:07.573 --> 00:17:12.843 The first of those is complacency. The risk that as this disease 00:17:12.851 --> 00:17:16.931 curve starts to bend, the media look elsewhere, the world looks elsewhere. 00:17:17.155 --> 00:17:20.565 Complacency always a risk. And the other risk of course is 00:17:20.586 --> 00:17:24.887 when you've been working so hard for so long and slept so few hours 00:17:24.887 --> 00:17:29.937 over the past months, people are tired, people become fatigued and these new risks 00:17:29.947 --> 00:17:35.327 start to creep into the response. Ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you today 00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:39.509 I've just come back from West Africa. The people of this countries, 00:17:39.560 --> 00:17:43.173 the leaders of these countries, they are not complacent. 00:17:43.173 --> 00:17:46.603 They want to drive ebola to zero in their countries. 00:17:46.603 --> 00:17:49.903 And these people, yes they're tired, but they are not fatigued. 00:17:49.913 --> 00:17:52.580 They have an energy, they have a courage, 00:17:52.580 --> 00:17:55.637 they have the strength to get this finished. 00:17:55.637 --> 00:17:59.880 What they need, ladies and gentlemen, at this point, is the unwavering support 00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:04.430 of the international community, to stand with them, to bolster and bring even more 00:18:04.460 --> 00:18:09.477 support at this time, to get the job finished. Because finishing ebola 00:18:09.477 --> 00:18:14.147 right now means turning the tables on this virus, and beginning to hunt it. 00:18:14.151 --> 00:18:18.749 Remember, this virus, this whole crisis, rather, started with one case, 00:18:18.749 --> 00:18:24.779 and is going to finish with one case. But it will only finish if those countries 00:18:24.804 --> 00:18:28.794 have got enough epidemiologist, enough health workers, enough logisticians 00:18:28.806 --> 00:18:32.296 and enough other people working with them to be able to find every one of 00:18:32.296 --> 00:18:36.796 those cases track their contacts and make sure that this disease stops 00:18:36.836 --> 00:18:40.154 once and for all. I can tell you just having come back, 00:18:40.154 --> 00:18:45.201 they are not complacent, they are not fatigued, and they will finish the job, 00:18:45.201 --> 00:18:47.708 if they had the support that they need. 00:18:47.708 --> 00:18:51.776 Ladies and gentleman, you know the story of ebola, we just told you the story 00:18:51.776 --> 00:18:57.460 of ebola, ebola can be beaten. Now we need you to take this story out 00:18:57.460 --> 00:19:01.274 to tell it to the people who will listen and educate them on what it means 00:19:01.274 --> 00:19:05.994 to beat ebola, and more importantly, we need you to advocate with the people 00:19:06.021 --> 00:19:10.127 who can help us bring the resources we need to these countries, 00:19:10.127 --> 00:19:11.847 to beat this disease. 00:19:11.868 --> 00:19:15.611 Ladies and gentleman, there are a lot of people out there who will survive and 00:19:15.611 --> 00:19:20.500 will thrive, in part, because of what you do to help us beat ebola. 00:19:20.500 --> 00:19:22.210 Thank you. 00:19:22.242 --> 00:19:26.362 (Applause)