THE WORLD BANK has pledged $200 million to help fight the Ebola virus outbreak in Africa.
World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, himself an expert on infectious diseases, said he has been monitoring the spread of the virus and was “deeply saddened” at how it was contributing to the breakdown of “already weak health systems in the three countries”.
The bank made the announcement as African leaders, including 35 presidents, are visiting Washington DC for a US-Africa summit.
The money comes as panic spreads across west Africa, where the death toll stands at nearly 900.
A fourth doctor has been confirmed as having the virus and Liberia’s public is growing increasingly angry over unburied dead.
Americans
Kent Brantly, the US doctor infected with the virus while working with charity Samaritan’s Purse, “seems to be improving”, the director of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control, where he is being treated in an isolation unit, said.
Another American, Nancy Writebol, a missionary who also contracted Ebola in Liberia, is expected to arrive in Atlanta today.
“We thank God that they are alive and now have access to the best care in the world,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse. “We are extremely thankful for the help we have received from the State Department, the CDC, the National Institute of Health, WHO and, of course, Emory Hospital.
“Please keep praying and thank God for all He is doing.”
Doctors in New York, meanwhile, say that a man admitted to a hospital in the city is unlikely to have Ebola.
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