Dr. Christian Happi

But then it's been circulating, but eventually when it got to places where, you know, in Bunia, for instance, where there could be government presence, then you could see the governments of the country responding.

I mean, the unfortunate part for this outbreak, it started in a place where there's really no governance, and then where the challenge for organizing, you know, a response to it was obvious.

Well, I don't think it is about the West getting something wrong about the current outbreak.

I think we are all getting it wrong, both the West and Africa actually getting it wrong about the current outbreak.

What we got wrong about the current outbreak is the fact that after SARS-CoV-2, after COVID-19, we went back to sleep on our laurels.

We went back to do business as usual.

We did not learn from COVID-19 or whether we learned, but we refused to apply the lessons learned from COVID-19, which was basically understanding that we need to continue to intentionally do disease surveillance.

We need to cooperate and work together.

We need to ensure that we share information.

We need to understand that we have to be very intentional in investing in research and development.

and accelerate processes related to research and development, and accelerate process related to vaccine, drugs, and diagnostic development.

We fail to understand that we need to put in place or strengthen the health system in places that are hard to reach, like the DRC and in other places in Africa.

We fail to understand that an outbreak anywhere in the world should be considered as an outbreak all over the world.

Because an outbreak that starts anywhere can reach the marketplaces within 48 hours.

These are the failures that we all, you know, should assume.

So it is not the responsibility of the West.

It is not the responsibility of, I mean, solo responsibility of the countries where this does happen.

As a global and health community and as a people,

You know, we have failed to learn from COVID-19 and we might end up paying the heavy price for it.

There are definitely probably many other pathogens that we don't even know about that may be even more dangerous than Bujumbujo.