 I'm Beverly Kirk with the Global Health Policy Center here with Dr. Steve Morrison. He's Senior Vice President and Director of the Global Health Policy Center here at CSIS and we're talking about the ongoing Ebola crisis. Now African leaders are meeting with President Obama here in Washington this week. How has the conversation about Ebola impacted the summit? Well, first of all, the actual holding of the summit here I think has helped sharpen up the response, the U.S. response and the African response to the crisis. And what I mean by that is because it was unfolding in the immediate roll-up to this and because you had Dr. Brantley and Nancy Whitebull medivac from Liberia to Atlanta, it became very important for the President and for the CDC Executive Director Tom Frieden to get out in front and explain to the American public what was happening. And so I believe what happened was that as a result was that people were better informed and around the need to be vigilant and that this would be managed and was safe and what was happening in the region. Second is that President Conte came to the summit from Guinea and he and senior officials from Liberia and Sierra Leone were engaging in intensive consultations and planning in moving forward with the surge program of support. Those are very positive things. Third, the summit itself, there was a little bit of irritation and evidence of some of the heads of state worried that overcharacterizing this as a runaway catastrophe was going to dent the reputation and image of Africa. President Kikwete from Tanzania, President Makisal from Senegal, President Conte himself, they were weighing in at different points to say, well, yes, it's a very serious situation. And that was a little bit at odds, frankly, with the continued very strong assertions being made by Tom Frieden and by Margaret Chan and others that this remains a very, very grave risk of further expansion and that this is a true region-wide crisis. And that's not the only controversy. There's been some controversy about the fact that the two U.S. aid workers were given this experimental drug as treatment. Talk about that. Yes, there's a serum that has not been approved, tested or approved for human use. It's a serum that has, it's a cocktail of antibodies that have been developed in response specifically to Ebola. And so these two individuals who got sick in Liberia and who were at risk of dying requested that they be able to acquire vials of this. And those were shipped on an emergency basis into Liberia. Those two individuals, their condition has improved somewhat, whether it's attributed to this or not, we do not know. The serum, as I said, it's experimental. It's only produced in very small volumes. But this set off a debate around equity and issues of, well, if these are available on an emergency basis, even if they're not fully vetted and tested, shouldn't they be given out to other people, either other health workers or poor peasants and others who are getting sick and dying, to try and raise the probability of survival. Or to help protect people that are on the front lines. And that has ignited a debate around whether the agencies that approve these should accelerate, whether there should be a compassion clause that allows for suspending some of the normal requirements. Against that is the question around protecting the safety of citizens and the efficacy. And there's a good reason for being very cautious in introducing these drugs. If we're not really sure what the side effects and what the efficacy are. So it's a big debate that is now opened. And what's the latest from the region in terms of the spread, the numbers, the continuing crisis? It continues to grow. And the developments that are underway are mixed. On the one hand, we're in a phase of a very, very rapid mobilization on multiple levels. There's new money coming in. The World Bank, Jim Kim stepped forward with $200 million commitment, the Africa Development Bank, 60 million critical inputs for salaries, for commodities, for supporting transport and the like. You have the WHO coming forward, Margaret Chan, and the World Health Organization with $100 million program. You have USAID and CDC committing additional support, including 50 U.S. personnel. So pulling those pieces together and getting that moving. There's also discussion, should the U.S. military be providing some support in terms of its lift capacities, air and by land, its ability to mobilize in these crises. The U.S. military has distinguished itself repeatedly in West Africa in crises over the last 25 years at mobilizing and operating in these environments. That's under active discussion. On the negative side, we have secondary transmission in Nigeria from the American. The patient that died there. That died there, that left Liberia and wound up in Lagos, died in a hospital, infected a number of other people. One has died, six or seven are infected. That's a very dangerous thought. There is a mobilization of military and police, both in the urban environments that are infected in Sierra Leone and Liberia and Guinea, but also in the remote areas where much of the transmission is concentrated, where those three countries come together in an area called the Parrot's Beak. And so you're seeing a mobilization coming from those governments, whether that is effective or not, we'll see. They are going to need protective equipment. They're going to need good training. They're going to need support. And there's a fear, obviously within the region, that you're going to see transmission into other neighboring states. Cote d'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Benin or Togo. Nigeria is, of course, a colossal threshold that has partially been passed now. So we're in a phase where this continues to move forward with the transmission. We still have resistance. We still have stigma. We still have a lack of trust at a social level. It still remains to be seen whether the militaries can carry out these duties. And we have this big mobilization that needs to be operationalized on an urgent basis. All right. Dr. Steve Morrison, thank you. Thank you.