The World Health Organization’s (WHO) failure in taking appropriate actions to combat Ebola played a key role in the outbreak of the deadly disease, claimed a new report. The disease took lives of more than 11,000 people.

According to the panel the biggest mistake by the WHO was its failure to take quick actions when early signs of the outbreak surfaced in 2014.

Professor AshishJha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) and co-chair of the panel, said, “The most egregious failure was the delay in sounding the alarm. People at WHO were aware that there was an Ebola outbreak that was getting out of control, and yet, it took until August to declare public health emergency”.

Dr Grant Hill-Cawthorne, a senior lecturer in Communicable Disease Epidemiology at Sydney University, agreed with the report and said the report was a true assessment of the inadequate global Ebola response.

But he also said that the chances of seeing such an epidemic are relatively less due to the available vaccine and awareness among people about the lethal disease.

The panel has demanded for reforms to ensure that no such epidemic occurs again in near future. It also said their primary goal is to convince high-level political leaders across the world to make some necessary and permanent changes in order to be well prepared for future outbreaks.

US colleague Dr Suerie Moon, from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said in a statement that the next major question that comes before them is whether political leaders will demand the necessary reforms that are needed before the next such epidemic.