The World Bank Group yesterday announced that it will nearly double its financing to $400 million to help the Ebola worst-hit countries address their emergency services and build stronger health systems. The Bank said $230 million will go towards emergency responses and $170 million for medium- and long-term health projects. The new resources will also target to rapidly increase the healthcare workforce and purchasing needed supplies. West Africa is the most affected region in the world by the current Ebola epidemic, where Ebola has spread to Guinea, Liberia Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Another strain of the virus was however detected in the Equateur Province of DR Congo in late August and is still ongoing. “The global community is now responding with the urgency and the scale needed to begin to turn back this unprecedented Ebola crisis,” said World Bank Group president Jim Yong Kim, who was speaking at a special session on the Ebola crisis at the United Nations. “The real challenge now is to bring care and treatment to the most remote areas as well as the cities and then to build a stronger healthcare system.” The Group previously announced that it was mobilising $230 million for three countries that are the hardest hit by the crisis – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone—including a $117 million emergency response. “We can, we must, all move more swiftly to contain the spread of Ebola and help these countries and their people. Too many lives have been lost already, and the fate of thousands of others depends on a response that can contain and stop the epidemic,” Kim added. Recently, Rwanda announced that it was pondering to provide medical assistance to Ebola hit countries, following a request from the US. But the decision will not come until after two months, officials said. Yesterday, the US named its ambassador, Nancy Powell, as the head of the Ebola Coordination Unit, to lead outreach to international partners and governments to ensure a speedy and truly global response to the crisis. The World Health Organisation says more people have died in the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa than in all previous Ebola outbreaks combined since the virus was first discovered in 1976. The death toll, by WHO figures, is at 2,917, driven by the continuing rapid spread of the disease in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Guinea however, the number of new infections is reported to have stabilised.
