WB provides additional 650 million USD to support Ebola "epidemic" countries

The World Bank (WB) on April 17 pledged to provide an additional 650 million USD in aid over the next 12-18 months to support the three West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in dealing with the consequences of the Ebola epidemic.

Guinea Red Cross staff transfer the body of an Ebola patient at Donka Hospital in the capital Conakry on March 8. (Source: AFP/TTXVN)

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced the aid during a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

With this latest commitment, the total aid that this financial institution has supported for Ebola response and recovery programs has reached 1.62 billion USD.

The World Bank estimates that the Ebola epidemic continues to paralyze the economies of these three West African countries, with Liberia losing up to 240 million USD in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Guinea losing 535 million USD and Sierra Leone losing 1.4 billion USD.

Also at the meeting, three West African leaders announced a recovery plan after the Ebola epidemic, calling for up to $8 billion in aid to help rebuild the economy and build a health system to prevent future outbreaks.

Under the plan, $4 billion will be deployed over two years to help restore communities devastated by the pandemic. The aid is also aimed at restoring investor confidence after many sources of investment withdrew from "epidemic" countries.

Newly updated data from WHO shows that last week in West African countries, 37 new Ebola patients were confirmed, the lowest number in nearly a year.

Among these patients are 28 Guineans and 9 Sierra Leoneans.

Since the Ebola outbreak began in December 2013, a total of 23,969 people in nine countries have been infected with the dangerous virus and 9,807 of them have died. Of these, Liberia alone has had 9,249 cases of Ebola with 4,117 deaths.

Six months ago, in Liberia there were more than 300 new infections every week././

According to Vietnam+