A U.S. doctor who survived Ebola has criticized the lack global response to the crisis. Dr. Kent Brantly recovered after being flown home from Liberia and receiving one of a handful of doses of an experimental drug. Speaking on Tuesday, Brantly acknowledged the Ebola crisis had received relatively little coverage until he and another U.S. missionary fell ill.

Dr. Kent Brantly: “This unprecedented outbreak received very little notice from the international community until those events of mid-July when Nancy Writebol and I became infected. Since that time, there has been intense media attention and increased awareness of the situation on the ground in West Africa. The response to date, however, has remained sluggish and unacceptably out of step with the scope and the size of the problem that is now before us.”

According to the World Health Organization, both the total number of Ebola cases and the number of people killed have roughly doubled over the past couple weeks, with more than 5,000 total cases. The agency has announced about $1 billion will be needed to contain the crisis, which it called “unparalleled in modern times.”