In this 2016 interview Hans Rosling reflects on his role in the response to the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa. Rosling traveled to Monrovia, Liberia in October 2014 to assist the Incident Management System (IMS) with modeling the spread of the disease. He describes Liberia’s case monitoring systems and the challenges of coordinating data collection and epidemiological surveillance. Rosling discusses how domestic and internationals responders coalesced into an organized force for disease control and treatment. When the large numbers of cases in West Africa crashed a CDC-provided database called Epi-Info, Rosling switched to a system of Excel spreadsheets. He also introduced daily situation reports to update the response team members about the status of cases across the country and served as a powerful communicator of the story behind the data.

In this interview, Nicolas Dupont describes his role in overseeing  Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) procurement of medical and logistical supplies during its emergency response to the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa. He talks about how his department conducted quality assurance and product validation for supplies, while adhering to technical standards. He addresses how MSF’s procurement operations and supply chain adapted to the evolving nature of the outbreak. He describes the role of institutional donor funding on MSF’s external humanitarian partners during the outbreak and its effect on an organization’s spending capacity during a crisis. He explains MSF’s role in collaborating with its partners and the need to prioritize external customers amidst an emergency response. He notes the importance of creating centralized commercial and replenishment points during an emergency response and the benefit of facilitating strong cooperation between procurement departments and field operations. Finally, he reflects on the most difficult logistical issues he encountered and the need to avoid market bottlenecks in future emergency responses.