|
Declaration of the Extraordinary ALBA-TCP Summit on
Ebola
Havana, October 20, 2014
The member countries of the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America
–Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP in its Spanish
acronym), meeting in Havana on October 20th, 2014,
on the occasion of the Extraordinary Summit to deal
with the Ebola epidemic.
Profoundly concerned about the
humanitarian catastrophe in West Africa caused by
the Ebola epidemic, which is been considered by the
World Health Organization (WHO) to be a “public
health emergency” of international concern, with the
threat of spreading to other countries and regions
of the world;
Aware of the urgency with which
the international community as a whole, in full
cooperation with the World Health Organization
(WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)
and the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency
Response (UNMEER) is undertaking actions to deal
with this scourge using all necessary resources;
Clearly understanding with
concern that the international resources required in
order to undertake rapid and efficacious actions to
deal with the Ebola epidemic are continuing to be
insufficient to confront what could become one of
the most serious pandemics in the history of
humanity;
Reaffirming that ALBA-TCP is
sustained on principles of solidarity, true
cooperation and complementarity among our countries,
and commitment to the most vulnerable peoples and
the preservation of life on this planet;
Convinced that it is vital to
adopt efficacious and urgent cooperation measures
that, through coordinated actions of the health
sector and other sectors, can contribute to prevent
the Ebola epidemic from spreading to the countries
of our hemisphere;
Remembering stipulations
established in the International Health Regulation
(2005) and in the WHO Roadmap for Response to Ebola
on August 28th of 2014, whose aim is to stop
transmission of Ebola on a global scale and to
confront the consequences of any new international
spread;
Taking note of WHO protocols for
the prevention of transmission of Ebola among
persons, organizations and population groups;
Emphasizing that it is possible
to contain the Ebola outbreak, especially by
applying the established interventions in matters of
health and safety and other preventative measures
that have demonstrated their efficacy;
We hereby agree:
1. To coordinate our efforts to
prevent and deal with the Ebola epidemic, including
rapidly providing and sharing assistance among our
countries, with healthcare workers and relevant
supplies and materials.
2. To meet, as a priority, the
special needs of our sister countries in the
Caribbean, allowing them to benefit from cooperation
for preventing and confronting Ebola that are agreed
upon by ALBA-TCP countries.
3. To immediately activate
ALBA-TCP’s Epidemiological Surveillance Network, the
creation of which was agreed to at the First Meeting
of Health Ministers of the Alliance held on this
past February 25th, 2014 in Caracas.
4. To decisively support the
voluntary medical brigades specialized in dealing
with disasters and major epidemics, the Henry Reeve
Contingent of the Republic of Cuba, working in the
countries of Africa. In this regard, we express our
willingness, as the Bolivarian Alliance, to
contribute with highly qualified health personnel to
join the efforts of this contingent on tasks that
are required in the region of Latin America and the
Caribbean.
5. To establish national
mechanisms to rapidly diagnose and isolate suspected
cases of Ebola, taking into account the initial
clinical manifestations of the disease, the travel
and/or exposure history reported by the patient or
obtained by epidemiological investigation.
6. To share and generate capacity
for the diagnosis of diseases which require
laboratories of appropriate bio-safety levels.
7. To design and carry out public
education campaigns about the prevention of and
response to Ebola, directed toward increasing the
preparedness of the population and to promote their
trust.
8. To provide and reinforce
preventive measures for the detection and mitigation
of exposure to Ebola infection and to provide
treatment and effective medical services for
response team personnel.
9. To reinforce measures of
epidemiological surveillance at borders,
particularly at ports and airports.
10. To contribute to the training
of health care workers specialized in the prevention
and control of Ebola in the ALBA-TCP countries and
the Caribbean, on the basis of accumulated
experience.
11. To create a cadre of
professionals from different specialties to train
healthcare workers in the areas of bio-safety,
including the use of personal protective equipment
to be used for suspected or confirmed cases of
Ebola, care of hemorrhagic diseases and critical
patients, who may serve as facilitators and advisors
in their respective countries.
12. To ensure the deployment of
all possible health services, reserve medical teams
and the vital consumables to confront the disease.
13. To encourage scientific,
epidemiological and biological research on Ebola
within the ALBA-TCP framework, and promote
cooperation in this field with other countries, as a
contribution to international efforts directed
towards confronting the epidemic and with the
objective of consolidating the scientific, medical
and health independence of the countries of the
Alliance.
14. To improve information
mechanisms among our countries so that we may remain
up to date on the epidemiological situation of
ALBA-TCP countries, and so that acquired experiences
may be disseminated with greater ease.
15. To decisively support
initiatives of the United Nations, particularly WHO/PAHO
and UNMEER, for implementation of the
recommendations of the International Health
Regulations Emergency Committee.
16. To promote cooperation with
other countries of the hemisphere in order to face
and prevent Ebola, and undertake joint programmes
that would contribute to that end.
17. To urgently convene a
technical meeting of specialists and directors of
ALBA-TCP countries, in Havana, on 29 and 30 October,
to exchange experiences and knowledge, as well as to
draft prevention and control strategies for the
threat of the Ebola epidemic.
18. To charge the Ministers of
Health of the ALBA-TCP countries to draft an Action
Plan in the light of the proposals of the technical
meeting of specialists and directors, and its
immediate application, in coordination with PAHO/WHO.
This Plan must be presented for consideration by the
heads of state and government of the ALBA-TCP, at
the latest on 5 November, 2014.
19. To use all the resources
available to the ALBA-TCP Executive Secretariat to
support the agreed initiatives.
20. To congratulate the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for the donation of
five million dollars to combat Ebola, and which was
delivered to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, on
16 October, 2014.
21. To congratulate the Republic
of Cuba and its people for the demonstration of
solidarity with the sister countries of West Africa
by sending Cuban medical personnel.
22. To propose that the Community
of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC)
promotes regional efforts for prevention and control
of the threat of the Ebola epidemic.
23. To continue collaborating
with the countries of Africa affected by the
epidemic, to maintain existing cooperation with
those who are not affected and to incorporate the
experiences of the brigades specialized in
confronting disasters and major epidemics who are at
work there.
Havana, 20 October, 2014
|
