However, even if the agency made unforced errors in confronting the Ebola outbreak, experts say WHO lacked the resources to effectively respond in the first place.

The agency has been hollowed out for decades, with funding cuts and staffing reductions, some of it forced by the U.S., according to John Campbell, senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and former ambassador to Nigeria.

Campbell told Mashable that, while health authorities know how to contain Ebola and squelch outbreaks, “the difficulty is that doing it requires huge resources.” That task can't fall on the shoulders of one agency.