Africa Sets Up $28.5m Ebola Crisis Fund

BBC News

Top African business leaders have established an emergency fund to help countries hit by the Ebola outbreak.

A pledging meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised $28.5m to deploy at least 1,000 health workers to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Experts say that if the disease is to be speedily contained, it needs to be tackled in these three countries.

Nearly 5,000 people out of about 14,000 cases have been killed by the virus, most of them in Liberia.

Ebola deaths in West Africa Up to 4 November
4,960 Deaths – probable, confirmed and suspected (Includes one death in US and one in Mali)
2,766 Liberia
1,130 Sierra Leone
1,054 Guinea
8 Nigeria
Source: WHO

Speaking at the end of the Addis Abada meeting, African Union chairman Dlamini Zuma said the resources mobilised would be part of a longer term programme to deal with such outbreaks in the future.

Read more at BBC News »

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