The World Bank on Thursday announced an additional 100 million U.S. dollars of funding in a response to curtailing Ebola crisis so as to speed up deployment of foreign health workers to the three worst-affected countries in West Africa, a UN spokesman told reporters here.
Current estimates by the United Nations indicate that about 5, 000 international medical, training and support personnel are needed in the three countries over the coming months to respond to the Ebola outbreak, including 700 to 1,000 foreign health workers to treat patients in the Ebola treatment centers, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.
"The World Bank's additional financing will help set up a coordination hub in close cooperation with the three countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response to recruit, train and deploy qualified foreign health workers," said the spokesman.
The latest figures from the WHO report a total of 13,703 confirmed cases of Ebola virus infection and 4,922 deaths, mostly occurring in the three hardest hit countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Related:
Spotlight: China offers 4th batch of aid to Africa in anti-Ebola efforts
BEIJING, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday unveiled the details of its 4th batch of aid worth some 82 million U.S. dollars to help African countrie's fight against the ebola virus.
According to Sun Jiwen, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, the latest aid package includes sending health experts to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea -- the three hardest-hit countries in the Ebola crisis -- to help contain the epidemic and sending public health staff to train local doctors and nurses, as well as medical equipments and materials.