Slow flow of funds and staff hamper efforts to fight Ebola

Despite the steady stream of funds being pledged to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, UN organisations say that not enough money and international staff have arrived in the hardest-hit areas.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon convened a high-level meeting at the UN General Assembly on Thursday to shore up further international support.

Governments, international banks and philanthropic funds have provided secure funding of $344mn, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). And on Thursday, the World Bank, the European Union and France made new pledges worth a total of $278mn.

But there is still a way to go to reach the $988mn that the UN says is needed over the next six months.

The money is being used to stop the outbreak, treat the sick and counter negative social and economic effects that the virus has unleashed in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

So far, the largest shares of the funding have come from the World Bank, followed by the US, the African Development Bank, the European Commission, and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund.

Among private donors, two foundations set up by the founders of US software giant Microsoft stand out. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Paul G Allen Family Foundation have together contributed $24mn and have pledged another $45mn.

But pledges take time to be turned into commitments and payments, and payments take time to flow through the UN system and arrive where they can be put to actual use.

As of Tuesday, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) had received only 13% of the $126.9mn being funnelled from the Ebola fund to help fight the epidemic. Food aid is one of the major cost factors within the overall aid appeal, along with treatment centres, tracking of Ebola cases and improving general health services.

Guinea and Sierra Leone have yet to secure the treatment units with a total of 2,100 hospital beds for Ebola patients, according to WHO

The US has promised to send troops to set up treatment centres.

Beside money, what is most desperately needed is foreign medical staff as well as other field workers.

The three Ebola-hit countries in the region were short of medical workers even before the epidemic, and so far, the dangerous haemorrhagic fever has claimed 208 of them.

Cuba is sending at least 165 doctors, nurses and other staff, while China is deploying a mobile laboratory along with 59 experts. The German government is actively trying to recruit volunteer staff to help in West Africa.

However, only a fraction of the roster of 656 needed foreign experts has been filled so far.

People who care for the sick are so overworked that they have been making mistakes about hygienic precautions, thus raising the risk of getting themselves and others infected.

West African, British and WHO scientists warned in a study this week that unless outbreak control measures and international support improve quickly, the three affected countries “will soon be reporting thousands of cases and deaths each week”.