Next in our series of interviews with experts at The World Vaccine Congress in Washington is a conversation with Absolute Health Care Centre’s Dr Jerry Brown, who joined us in Washington for a panel in the Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases track: “medical countermeasures for Ebola & other emerging infectious diseases: are we ready?” Dr Brown is a physician from Liberia, where he served as the Chief Executive Officer for the primary teaching and referral hospital. He is now a consultant surgeon at a private facility. His experience in Liberia during the Ebola epidemic drew international recognition.
Key themes from the panel
We begin with a question about the panel, and what key discussion points emerged during this important discussion. Dr Brown suggests that a key theme has to do with vaccine availability, and how feasible it would be to deploy vaccines to countries that need them. Related to this, the importance of “capacity to have a repository” in country was emphasised, considering technicalities and policies.
“Another key issue that came up was ‘how prepared are we’… in terms of our diagnostic capacity.”
Dr Brown reflects that, after experiencing the Ebola crisis and COVID-19, Liberia is still behind its neighbouring countries in terms of diagnostic capacities; Liberia has only BSL-2 facilities.
“Diagnostic-wise, we still have a long way to go in Liberia.”
Considering preparedness, Dr Brown suggests that “we have a very good preparedness plan” and “robust surveillance plan” in place.
Lessons from Ebola
We then asked Dr Brown about his experience of the Ebola crisis, and if there are any lessons he identifies in this for future health threats. He believes that a “strength” that they demonstrated both during the Ebola epidemic and again during the COVID-19 pandemic was “having a multi-sectoral collaboration” with private and public interactions.
“The other thing is having a good community engagement, where we’re able to engage the people to kind of ensure that they don’t resist…so that the community becomes receptive.”
Central to this was engaging community health workers, who played a critical role in disease management. While these strengths were in place for COVID-19, they had to be developed in response to Ebola.
“We did learn a lot from what we went through during Ebola, and that helped us greatly during the time of our intervention with COVID-19.”
Dr Brown suggests that “we may not be fully capacitated to do all that is done in the West”, and reminds us that during COVID-19, access to ventilators was delayed. In their absence, clinicians had to use their “clinical skills and knowledge” to “save many lives”.
“The other good thing I think we also learnt to do is working together as a team; that played a significant role in helping us make progress in our fight against the pandemic.”
Key access challenges
Our next question ties back into Dr Brown’s observations about access and capacity. He considers the example of the production of COVID-19 vaccines, which was something “we don’t have control over”. Thus, obtaining vaccines took longer.
“I think it’s the political will also that plays a significant role.”
While Dr Brown doesn’t believe his country was “resistant” to medical interventions, it “took some time”. However, he suggests that “we were grateful” to have access before other nations.
“When it comes to diagnostic capacity, for us to still be lagging behind other nations, I am really trying to figure out why.”
Dr Brown wonders if “political interaction” might be influencing the quantity and quality of investment and support.
“We still have a long way to go to be able to appropriately combat another epidemic if we had now.”
Acknowledging the few opportunities to develop research skills, Dr Brown believes “we are still lacking”.
“There is still a big gap that we still need to fill.”
Why WVC?
Finally, as always, we conclude by asking our experts about their time at the Congress. Dr Brown was interested in sharing his perspectives on a “thought-provoking” panel. A key thing that he was able to stress is that there is “no equilibrium in the distribution” of supplies.
“Let’s face the fact, when those things are distributed or are available, third world countries don’t tend to get a big chunk of it first.”
Dr Brown wants the community to “strive” for more equitable distribution. He also enjoyed some sessions on malaria, and hopes that Liberia will be considered in vaccine strategies in the “not-too-distant future”.
“Another thing that captivated my attention is the quest and zeal I see many persons having for research.”
It’s good to hear that Dr Brown was impressed by the efforts of his colleagues to “impact change”, despite concerns about a reduction in funding. His answer to this comes from experience:
“People pay attention to major crisis.”
He considers wars, which divert attention from health crises.
“When there are global instabilities in other parts of the world, it’s going to affect any outbreak that we have anywhere in the world.”
It was a pleasure to speak to Dr Brown and we hope that you enjoy the interview!
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