Ebola:
A Wake-Up Call for Global Health

With respect to the Ebola crisis, the World Health Summit has organized a special symposium "Ebola: A Wake Up Call for Global Health" in association with the German Federal Ministry of Health and the German Federal Foreign Office to be held on October 20 from 08:30 to 10:00.

The Ebola outbreak has been a wake-up call for medicine and global health: To date there are nearly 3,000 deaths and a projected number of 20,000 infected people by early November 2014. The Ebola outbreak has to be considered one of the most serious public health crisis in the 21st century.

It has clearly shown that neglecting to build effective health systems in the poorest countries has a catastrophic effect in the face of an outbreak of a highly infectious disease. No specific effective treatment exists - a fact that draws attention to the neglect of research for drugs and vaccines for tropical diseases.

(c) WHO/R. Sorensen

Ebola has also drawn attention to major gaps in global health governance. The requirements of the International Health Regulations have not been met by the most vulnerable countries; the response to the outbreak has been too slow at national and international levels.

The symposium will discuss the next steps for carrying forward actions concerning this essential issue for medicine and global health.

Walter Lindner
(Ebola Commissioner, Germany)

David Heymann
(Chairman of the Board, Public Health England)

Rolf Horstmann
(Head of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg)

John Eu Li Wong
(CEO, National University Health System, Singapore)

Frank-Walter Steinmeier
(Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Germany)

Hermann Gröhe
(Federal Minister for Health, Germany)

Annick Girardin
(Minister of State for Development and Francophony, France)

Barry Marshall
(Nobel Prize Laureate in Medicine 2005, Australia)

Karl Max Einhäupl
(CEO of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany)

Statements of Young Leaders in Global Health:
‘Our Views to Improve Global Health’

Sunday, October 19
- Opening Ceremony: Welcome Messages and Keynotes

Monday, October 20
- Climate Change and Health
- Big Data / Systems Biology and Systemic Medicine

Tuesday, Octobr 21
- Health Research
- Universal Health Coverage

Wednesday, October 22
- Healthy Cities and Prevention
- Closing Ceremony: Towards a healthy society

Keynote lectures and symposia, held in the Weltsaal, will be streamed live on our website. Please visit www.worldhealthsummit.org to watch the live-streams.

(Please note: Bandwidth-limitations may cause occasional irregularities in the stream. In this case, please reload the page a little later.)

You can join the discussion through your Twitter-account, using the conference-hashtag #WHS14. All tweets will be displayed via a Twitterwall on our website.

In addition, you can find updated pictures and quotes on our Facebook-Page.

Public Day

The WHS Public Day, held on Wednesday, October 22, is designed for broad public participation and provides a unique chance for participants to get in touch with leading international decision-makers and researchers from various health-related areas.

Please join the discussion e.g. at the main sessions in the plenary hall “Weltsaal”:

Physical Activity and Healthy Aging
Symposium
09:00-10:30

Healthy Cities and Prevention
Keynote Lecture
11:00-12:15

Closing Ceremony: Towards a Healthy Society
Keynote Lecture
12:30-13:30

World Health Summit 2014
October 19-22
Federal Foreign Office Berlin