Washington: At a White House function last Friday David Nabarro watched as Barack Obama used his hands to try to explain to his audience the difference between linear and exponential growth.
The topic was the Ebola outbreak, and Dr Nabarro, who is leading the United Nation's Ebola response, was impressed that since his own presentations to various UN bodies last week – including at the Security Council meeting attended by Mr Obama - the President now appeared to share his sense of urgency about the virus's outbreak.
Centered on Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the current outbreak is the worst in history and has so far seen at least 6553 infected and 3083 killed according to Centres for Disease Control. The CDC fears that unchecked it may infect 1.4 million by January, becoming entrenched in some of the poorest and most volatile nations on earth.
The first case has been identified in the US, that of a patient who arrived in Texas on a flight from Liberia, though US officials said on Tuesday night in the US that they do not expect a broad outbreak as a result.
Speaking as he prepared to return to Europe and then west Africa from the General Assembly meetings, Dr Nabarro says in his calm and measured British tones that this Ebola outbreak scares him more than anything he has seen in a lifetime spent leading international responses to disasters and epidemics.
"I can remember in Africa early on in HIV thinking 'this is an unspeakably awful situation but it will not decimate the population'… though we still lost millions. I watch this and I think it is much nastier than HIV.
"I remember working on SARS and being scared, but this is much worse than SARS. It is just spreading faster and faster and faster."
He is not the only person so concerned. As Dr Nabarro visited the White House on Friday the former US Central Command commander, retired General Charle Zinni, said he believed the threat from Ebola outweighed that of the Islamic State.
"I would say Ebola is the greater global threat," he told Bill Maher on HBO's Real Time program. "I think ISIS certainly is a regional threat. I think its tentacles can reach out and create problems in our country and other countries, but it's not an existential threat. Ebola can become an existential threat on a global level."
Though the outbreaks appear to have been arrested in Nigeria and Senegal, in west Africa it is doubling its spread every three weeks. If it is not contained by January, and spreads at the rates predicted by experts, Dr Nabarro says it will inevitably spread to the wider world.
Dr Nabarrao's concern is that though many countries now seem to understand the size and urgency of the crisis, some have not yet contributed as much as they might, and others are still bound by bureaucratic decision-making.
"I don't have time anymore for meetings or phone conferences in which decisions are not made," he says.
Speaking of the need for infrastructure to move equipment in one area of infection he says, "I need $30 million now, not in a month, now."
In total Dr Nabarro estimates the various agencies will need about $1 billion to contain and then control the outbreak in the forseeable future. So far about 30 per cent of that has been pledged.
The international effort is now snowballing. The United States has dispatched troops to build field hospitals and training centers in Liberia, Cuba is sending over 400 medical staff, China a fully equipped laboratory. Canada has pledged $30 million in support and even the tyre company Bridgestone, which grows rubber in West Africa, has pledged $1 million.
Asked if Australia's pledges of about $8 million are enough, Dr Nabbaro said he would not comment on individual nations' contributions, but he said he had worked with Australian teams in previous crises and hoped any nation with such capabilities would lend them to the fight.
It is understood an Australian medical team is prepared to depart to west Africa but will not leave until a protocol is agreed for evacuation of its members to Europe if they are infected.
