The war on Ebola gets a general, the WHO admits it failed

Leading the way. President Barack Obama has named a longtime Washington administrator as the czar of the government’s response to the Ebola virus. Ron Klain most recently served as chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden, but also has experience working for former Vice President Al Gore and Clinton-era attorney general Janet Reno. Whereas other officials involved in the crisis, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden, have myriad responsibilities within their agencies, Klain will focus solely on coordinating the fight against Ebola. Klain comes to the job with management credentials, extensive federal government experience overseeing complex operations, and good working relationships with leading members of Congress and senior Obama administration officials. What he doesn’t have is any substantial experience in healthcare. Whether that will make a difference in a role that’s largely managerial remains to be seen.

Travel restrictions. Healthcare workers in Dallas who took care of the first Ebola patient there have been asked to stay away from public places and transportation. They were asked to sign legally binding documents promising to do so, after two staffers traveled while under observation for symptoms of the deadly disease. Amber Vinson flew to Cleveland and back last weekend and became sick with Ebola the next day. Though she had permission to travel from the CDC, Frieden later admitted the agency made an error in judgment. Vinson is now being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Meanwhile, the government is working to evacuate a Dallas lab supervisor who handled an Ebola specimen from a Carnival Cruise Lines ship in the Caribbean. The woman has shown no signs of infection, but she should not be on the ship because of the tighter regulations on travel for people who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died of Ebola in Dallas on Oct. 8.

Positive outlook. A doctor treating nurse Nina Pham, who contracted Ebola from Duncan, said today, “We fully intend to have this patient walk out of this hospital.” Pham was transferred Thursday from Dallas to a specialized isolation unit at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. Doctors there listed Pham’s condition as fair and said she is in good spirits, sitting up, eating, and using her iPad. Dr. Rick Davey, who examined Pham, said she is “doing quite well compared to what we were told about her status at the other hospital.”

Clinical trials. A North Carolina drugmaker says the Food and Drug Administration has given it permission to test its experimental antiviral drug in patients who have Ebola. Chimerix Inc. said it has received FDA clearance to proceed with a trial examining the safety and effectiveness of its brincidofovir tablets. The company said in a statement that the drug is available for immediate use. The FDA does not publicly confirm when it has granted companies permission to begin testing. The agency has not approved for public use any drugs or vaccines to treat Ebola.

Epic fail. The World Health Organization admitted today to making serious missteps in responding to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. “Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall,” the UN health agency said in a draft internal document obtained by The Associated Press. The response was characterized by incompetency and ineffective bureaucracy, the document said, and experts should have realized they could not contain the disease using traditional methods in an African region with porous borders and broken health systems. Dr. Peter Piot, who co-discovered the Ebola virus, questioned Friday why it took five months and 1,000 deaths before the WHO declared Ebola an international health emergency in August. The death toll from Ebola is expected to rise this week to more than 4,500 people out of 9,000 infected, with the number of cases possibly doubling every four weeks, according to the WHO.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.