TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - More than US$1 billion is needed to fight the West Africa Ebola outbreak, which is a health crisis "unparalleled in modern times", UN officials say, as reported by BBC News.
The spread of the disease means the funds needed to fight the outbreak have increased ten-fold in the past month, the UN's Ebola co-ordinator said.
Ebola has killed 2,461 people this year, about half of those infected, the World Health Organization said.
There has been criticism of the slow international response to the epidemic.
The outbreak began in Guinea before spreading to its neighbours Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Nigeria and Senegal have reported some cases, but seem to have contained the transmission of the virus.
"We requested about $100m a month ago and now it is $1bn, so our ask has gone up 10 times in a month," the UN's Ebola co-ordinator, David Nabarro, told a briefing in Geneva.
"Because of the way the outbreak is advancing, the level of surge we need to do is unprecedented, it is massive."
According to the latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus has infected at least 4,985 people so far, with about half of those infected dying.
BBC NEWS
