By Marino Donati | 20 October 2014
The United Nations has agreed plans to help coordinate the response of the international community to the Ebola outbreak.
The agreed framework comes after a four-day meeting in Accra, Ghana, to discuss strengthening support for support for Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. It followed calls last week for more action in tackling the Ebola crisis amid warnings of a continuously deteriorating situation in those countries.
The meeting was attended by senior officials from the UN as well as its agencies, funds and programmes, and international partners such as the World Bank, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Kingdom Department for International Development.
The operational framework is intended to ensure the UN adopts a unified and coordinated approach to the international support being provided to national response plans.
Governments in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have the final decision on the overall approach and strategy for dealing with Ebola in their respective countries.
The UN has been providing food aid, delivering building supplies, and providing healing and training for survivors.
Anthony Banbury, chief of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response will return to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone next week to further consult with leaders, and to brief them on the operational plans produced in the meeting.
Last week UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon appealed to the international community to provide the $1 billion to meet the target of reducing the rate of transmission by 1 December.
‘Ebola is a huge and urgent global problem that demands a huge and urgent global response,’ he said. ‘The people and governments of West Africa are demonstrating significant resilience, but they have asked for our help.
‘Dozens of countries are showing their solidarity. But we need to turn pledges into action. We need more doctors, nurses, equipment, treatment centres and medical evacuation capacities.’
Recent figures from the UN World Health Organization (WHO) show that 4,493 have died from Ebola, from a total of 8,997 cases in seven countries.
The UK has pledged £125m to fight the disease in Sierra Leone and made its sixth aid flight over the weekend. It provided almost £900,000 worth of medical equipment needed for a 92-bed treatment facility in Kerry Town.
