Stopping the Spread of Ebola
When Ebola threatened the Ghanaian capital of Accra in 2014, it posed a risk to the health of Ghanaians and Americans alike: Ghana hosts over a million visitors per year, including many American citizens who could bring the deadly virus back to the United States. An interagency team of American officials formed to help the Ghanaian government deal with the threat, including Ambassador to Ghana Gene Cretz, representatives from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Department of Defense, and officers from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Among them was Jim Bever, USAID Mission Director for Ghana.
Although the Ghanaian government had taken steps to prepare for an Ebola outbreak and Ambassador Cretz had encouraged the American-Ghanaian Chamber of Commerce & Industry to mobilize, Bever’s USAID team was concerned these efforts would not be enough. Visible Ghanaian government leadership at the highest level would be crucial in this crisis, and health care workers would need incentives to stay on through the potentially lethal outbreak, as countries to Ghana’s west suffered up to 50 percent mortality rates among those infected. Bever, his staff, a visiting CDC delegation, and others from the U.S. Embassy developed a strategy to reinforce Ghana’s readiness.
The Americans decided to introduce Ghanaian officials to lessons learned from nearby Nigeria, which had just recently successfully contained its own Ebola outbreak. “We worked with the U.S. Embassy in Abuja and invited Nigeria’s most experienced epidemiologists to come urgently to a gathering in Accra of Ghanaian cabinet ministers and regional officials…” Bever recalls. “They would be joined by both CDC’s team and by one of our top experts from USAID headquarters.” Meanwhile, Ambassador Cretz and the USAID health director “worked their [diplomatic] magic,” in Bever’s words, to convince key figures in the Ghanaian government, including the president’s chief of cabinet and key security and health ministers to host the meeting.
At the briefing, Ambassador Cretz explained America’s continuing interest in helping Ghana, and the visiting Nigerian experts provided their own experience, convincing observations and actionable recommendations.
“Perseverance, political astuteness, and creative diplomacy in reaching out to the Nigerians…made a real difference for Ghana. ”
Jim Bever
Supported by the Americans, the head of the Nigerian delegation urged the Ghanaian cabinet ministers, “If we can carry out these Ebola prevention actions in Nigeria, you can do them here in Ghana.” The Ghanaians were convinced: that very afternoon the full cabinet was meeting with Ghana’s president and moved Ebola prevention to the top of its agenda. By the following morning, the government of Ghana had passed several Ebola preparedness measures that had previously been in a holding pattern for months, including establishing an inter-ministerial task force to streamline command and control and a life insurance package to encourage healthcare workers to continue providing care in an outbreak.
Ultimately, Bever concludes, the Foreign Service’s skill set played a significant role in securing Ghana against Ebola. “Perseverance, political astuteness and creative diplomacy in reaching out to the Nigerians; our embassy’s timely access to and credibility with the top of Ghana’s government; and successful U.S. government interagency teamwork with CDC’s outstanding experts made a real difference for Ghana—and for America as well.”
