The African Development Bank will prepare an additional $150 million in funding for nations stricken by the Ebola virus as the World Health Organization plans to seek more resources and money to fight the outbreak.
The worst-affected countries may see 1 percentage point to 1.5 percentage points shaved off economic growth because of the disease, the bank’s president, Donald Kaberuka, told reporters today in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The money will be distributed in loans and grants to bolster epidemic preparedness and response, the WHO said. The bank previously pledged $60 million to help the countries fight Ebola.
More than $430 million will be needed to bring the worst Ebola outbreak on record under control, according to a draft document laying out the WHO’s battle strategy. The sum now being sought is six times more than the $71 million the WHO suggested was needed in a plan published less than a month ago.
“The response at the beginning wasn’t robust enough,” David Heymann, a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who worked on the first recorded Ebola outbreak in 1976. “It’s a step forward that they’ve made the plans and I’m glad they’re emphasizing rapid containment as a start.”
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