The fireman of global health: The WHO’s emergencies chief is put to the test
GENEVA — Walk into Mike Ryan’s office here on the orderly campus of the World Health Organization and you are in a train station.
Staff members rush in to see the agency’s ruddy, fast-talking emergencies chief to seek guidance on the various disease outbreaks they are trying to end. People crowd into the office where a pair of assistants are stationed, waiting their turn. When Ryan’s door is closed, it’s not long before a hand is rapping on the other side.
Ryan and his staff are firemen, the paramedics of global health. Their work is all front-burner stuff. Half an hour spent on this is 30 minutes not spent on that. There is the Ebola crisis — and a massive measles outbreak — in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Rohingya refugee situation in Bangladesh, too many crises to count in Yemen and Syria.
“It exhausts me at times,” said Ryan, who at 55 remains affable and quick to laugh despite the circumstances. Still, Ryan said, he is unwilling to change the tempo or restrict the access, knowing that the higher up one gets in an organization, the more reluctant colleagues are to be the conveyors of unwelcome information. “I don’t want them to hide the bad news,” he insisted.
The WHO employs all kinds of experts. Its scientists set standards for the appropriate use of antibiotics or vaccines, among
