--- title: Ebola Outbreak: Barack Obama Urges United Nations to Act Faster description: “We are not moving fast enough” canonical: https://time.com/3430201/ebola-outbreak-barack-obama-un/ author: Alex Rogers article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-25T15:48:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:01:40.544Z article:section: Health og:title: Ebola Outbreak: Barack Obama Urges United Nations to Act Faster og:description: “We are not moving fast enough” og:url: https://time.com/3430201/ebola-outbreak-barack-obama-un/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd00b215ed7df594a/6986a51455a859185da82c31/barack-obama-united-nation-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4096 og:image:height: 2304 og:image:alt: 69th session of the UN General Assembly og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ebola Outbreak: Barack Obama Urges United Nations to Act Faster twitter:description: “We are not moving fast enough” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd00b215ed7df594a/6986a51455a859185da82c31/barack-obama-united-nation-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Obama Urges UN to Act Faster on Ebola Outbreak > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=4ab4221c-de72-4ae4-bc22-e232c635b70a&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Obama Speaks on Ebola at The U.N. [Watch (HLS stream): Obama Speaks on Ebola at The U.N.](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/IDkAzydH.m3u8) (2:25)  _Published 2014-09-25. Obama Speaks on Ebola at The U.N._ by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Sep 25, 2014 3:48 PM UTC by [Alex Rogers](https://time.com/author/alex-rogers/) ## Alex Rogers Sep 25, 2014 3:48 PM UTC President Barack Obama said Thursday that every country needs to do more to confront the urgent threat of Ebola, warning that the United Nations’ response could determine the difference between tens of thousands of deaths and up to a million. “The outbreak is such that at this point more people will die,” Obama said during a UN meeting in New York. “But the slope of the curve, how fast we can arrest the spread of this disease, how quickly we can contain it, is within our control.” “If we move fast, even if imperfectly, than that could mean the difference between 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 deaths versus hundreds of thousands or even a million deaths,” Obama added. Obama said the United States could provide the infrastructure to aid the countries in West Africa where the outbreak has already killed more than 2,900 people. But the U.S. cannot by itself send enough health workers in fight the crisis, Obama said. “We are not moving fast enough,” Obama said. “We are not doing enough. Right now everybody has the best of intentions but people are not putting in the kinds of resources that are necessary to put a stop in to this epidemic.” “It’s a marathon but you have to run it like a sprint,” he added. ## Transcript Ebola is a horrific disease. It is wiping out entire families. It has turned simple acts of love and comfort and kindness like holding a sick friends hand, or embracing a dying child into potentially fatal acts. If ever there were a public health emergency deserving an urgent, strong and coordinated international response, this is it. But this is also more than a health crisis. This is a growing threat to regional and global security. In Liberia, in Guinea, in Sierra Leone public health systems have collapsed. Economic growth is slowing dramatically. If this epidemic is not stopped, this disease could cause. A humanitarian catastrophe across the region. And in an era where regional crisis can quickly become global threats, stopping Ebola is in the interest of all of us. The Ebola virus is spreading at alarming speed. Thousands of men, women and children have died. Thousands more are infected. If unchecked, this epidemic could kill hundreds of thousands of people in the coming months. Hundreds of thousands. So this is all progress and it is encouraging. But I, I want us to be clear. We are not moving fast enough. We are not doing enough. Right now, everybody has the best of intentions, but. People are not putting in the kinds of resources that are necessary to put a stop to this epidemic. We cannot do this alone, we don't have the capacity to do all of this by ourselves. 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