The board of executive directors of World Bank group in a statement issued in Washington on Wednesday has approved a $105m grant to finance Ebola containment efforts in west African countries infected with the dreaded virus disease but however excluded Nigeria as a beneficiary of the fund.
The bank said the fund would help families and communities in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to cope with the economic impact of the Ebola crisis as well as build and strengthen essential public health systems in the three worst affected countries to guard against future disease outbreaks.
It also said that the new Ebola emergency response project would mobilize $52m for Liberia, the country with the highest number of Ebola infections, and $28m for Sierra Leone and $25m for guinea, and that the allocation of the fund is calculated according to the world health Organisation road map and assessment of the relative severity of the epidemic in each country.
The president of the World bank group board of executive directors, Jim Yang Kim said the Ebola grant would have a long term regional development impact and also noted that the Ebola related restrictions were leading to food crisis in the quarantined and most affected areas where the three countries intersect.
