--- title: Aid Group Slams Global Response to Ebola Outbreak description: Brice de le Vingne, operations director of MSF, slams the world's "lack of willingness and professionalism" to tackle Ebola. canonical: https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/ author: Per Liljas article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-20T09:49:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:06:38.239Z article:section: Health og:title: Aid Group Slams Global Response to Ebola Outbreak og:description: Brice de le Vingne, operations director of MSF, calls the international response to the epidemic "non-existent" og:url: https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27ac549249045789/6986a028e53aba857c4d4149/ebola-liberia3.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Liberia Battles Spreading Ebola Epidemic og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Aid Group Slams Global Response to Ebola Outbreak twitter:description: Brice de le Vingne, operations director of MSF, calls the international response to the epidemic "non-existent" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27ac549249045789/6986a028e53aba857c4d4149/ebola-liberia3.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Aid Group Slams Global Response to Ebola Outbreak ## Video: Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8) (2:32)  _Published 2014-08-13. Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola_ by [Per Liljas](https://time.com/author/per-liljas/) ## Per Liljas Aug 20, 2014 9:49 AM UTC  A Liberian burial team wearing protective clothing retrieves the body of a 60-year-old Ebola victim from his home on Aug. 17, 2014 near Monrovia, Liberia. A Liberian burial team wearing protective clothing retrieves the body of a 60-year-old Ebola victim from his home on Aug. 17, 2014 near Monrovia, Liberia.John Moore—Getty Images by [Per Liljas](https://time.com/author/per-liljas/) ## Per Liljas Aug 20, 2014 9:49 AM UTC The main agency fighting the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is [lashing out](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0bb32b28-27bd-11e4-b7a9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3AtY87UyP) at the international response, calling it “non-existent.” “We are completely amazed by the lack of willingness and professionalism and coordination to tackle this epidemic,” Brice de le Vingne, the operations director of Doctors Without Borders, told the _Financial Times_. “We have been screaming for months. Now the situation is even worse – we are today on the verge of seeing an entire country collapsing.” An estimated 2,240 people have been infected with the virus in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since it first surfaced in March, and more than half of the afflicted have died. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) [describes](http://www.msf.org.uk/article/ebola-international-response-ebola-epidemic-dangerously-inadequate) the current situation in Liberia as “catastrophic” and continuously deteriorating. The country has closed its borders, declared a state of emergency and on Tuesday it [imposed](http://time.com/3146271/liberia-president-declares-ebola-curfew/) a curfew on the main slum area in the capital of Monrovia, where Ebola panic has lead to public unrest. Fear of infection has compounded the disaster, with workers and patients fleeing Monrovia hospitals in recent days, leading to an almost complete collapse of the health system and causing increased risks for other diseases such as malaria. To be fair, many countries and organizations are sending aid to the affected region. The African Development Bank has [pledged](http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2014-08-20/ebola-crisis-two-austrian-men-given-all-clear-african-development-bank-announces-60-million-to-fight/1358734) $56 million, the United Kingdom has [increased](https://www.gov.uk/government/world-location-news/britain-to-extend-assistance-to-combat-ebola-in-west-africa) its assistance to $8 million, China has [sent](http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/n/2014/0816/c90000-8770457.html) supplies worth $4.9 million, E.U. support [stands](http://allafrica.com/stories/201408130915.html) at $15.8 million, and the U.S. has pledged the same amount of aid as well as [deployed](http://kff.org/global-health-policy/perspective/ebola-in-west-africa-four-questions-for-the-u-s-response-going-forward/?utm%5Fcampaign=KFF:General&utm%5Fcontent=7505975&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fsource=twitter) a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART). According to MSF, however, that’s far from enough. “Leaders in the West are talking about their own safety and doing things like closing airlines – and not helping anyone else,” Brice de la Vingne [told](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/19/western-leaders-ebola-outbreak-africa-medecins-sans-frontieres) the _Guardian_, comparing it with the rapid international response to the earthquake in Haiti, where 300,000 people died. “You need very senior people with high profiles, the kind of people who can coordinate a response to a million people affected by an earthquake.” A million people are currently residing in quarantined regions and are at risk of not receiving adequate supplies of food and water, although the World Health Organization [said](http://www.france24.com/en/20140819-ebola-death-toll-west-africa-WHO/) Tuesday that it had started delivering food aid to hospitalized patients and quarantined districts, in cooperation with the World Food Program. This aid will continue for another three months. However, the biggest unmet need is for additional well-trained health workers. Professionals on the ground are exhausted, and several hundred have died in part because of a lack of training. MSF and other organizations are stretched to breaking point, some of them because of their involvement in other crises. USAID, for example, is [responding](https://www.devex.com/news/how-usaid-is-responding-to-ebola-in-west-africa-84181) to four humanitarian crises at the same time: South Sudan, Syria, Iraq and the Ebola outbreak. It must also weigh up whether to put people at risk. “There may be a lot of well-intentioned medical staff in the world, but this is Ebola,” DART leader Tim Callaghan [told](https://www.devex.com/news/how-usaid-is-responding-to-ebola-in-west-africa-84181) the development web site Devex. MSF president Dr. Joanne Liu told [told](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/world/africa/ebola-is-disaster-of-scale-still-unknown-relief-official-says.html?%5Fr=0) the New York _Times_ that it is also more difficult to recruit medical professionals to deal with Ebola than for any other emergency, because of the risk of infection and the dangers of giving constant care to the patients. “You have to learn to live with fear,” she said_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/"},"headline":"Aid Group Slams Global Response to Ebola Outbreak","datePublished":"2014-08-20T09:49:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:06:38.239Z","description":"Countries are securing their own borders and leaving West Africa to fend for itself","url":"https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/","keywords":["Infectious Disease","Aid","ebola","Liberia"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27ac549249045789/6986a028e53aba857c4d4149/ebola-liberia3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Per Liljas","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/per-liljas/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27ac549249045789/6986a028e53aba857c4d4149/ebola-liberia3.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Liberia Battles Spreading Ebola Epidemic","caption":"A Liberian burial team wearing protective clothing retrieves the body of a 60-year-old Ebola victim from his home on Aug. 17, 2014 near Monrovia, Liberia.","creditText":"John Moore—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/infectious-disease/","name":"Infectious Disease"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/","name":"Aid Group Slams Global Response to Ebola Outbreak"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","description":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/G194AmTC/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-13T23:41:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/","duration":"PT2M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3147485/west-africa-ebola-global-aid-response-doctors-without-borders-brice-de-le-vingne/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```