Ebola financing increases as the crisis worsens

BRUSSELS – The European Union is expected to allocate an additional 30 million euros ($ 33.4 million) and USAID has committed more than $ 38 million in additional funding in the Ebola crisis, while donors are encouraged to increase their commitments. The World Bank, which has been under surveillance recently for its Ebola funding disbursements, also announced $ 300 million in additional grants and credits for the response.

Monique Pariat, Director General of the Department of Humanitarian Aid to the European Commission, told MEPs that the epidemic would continue "until 2020" with 2,500 cases and more than 1 700 deaths reported so far. The latest outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in August 2018, with cases having since emerged in the main city of Goma and neighboring Uganda. On 17 July, the World Health Organization declared the epidemic a public health emergency of international concern.

Pariat said that the EU was preparing to step up its response to the crisis through its emergency aid reserve, designed to facilitate quick responses to unforeseen events. The Parliament's Budget Committee recently approved the granting of an additional 80 million euros to the reserve, of which 30 million euros for the Ebola response and 50 million euros for the Ebola response. euros for the fight against drought in the Horn of Africa.

According to an official document, the increase adds to the 40 million euros already programmed for the Ebola crisis this year and will go to "Infection Prevention and Control, Searching Contacts," Epidemiology and surveillance, water, sanitation and hygiene measures, risk communication, community engagement and social mobilization, coordination, information management and logistics ".

At the same time, USAID's new funding commitment brings the agency's total badistance to more than $ 136 million. Funding will cover infection prevention and control, community engagement, surveillance, training of health personnel, promotion of safe and dignified burials, and food badistance. The United States is also funding preparatory efforts in neighboring Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan and South Sudan, according to a press release.

The $ 300 million from the World Bank will come from the International Development Association – its financing window for low-income countries – and its crisis response window. It will cover health zones affected by the Ebola virus and include funding for front-line intervention programs and cash-for-work programs. The bank indicates that the amount corresponds to "about half" of the financing needs foreseen in the fourth strategic response plan, which has not yet been finalized. Previously, the bank had announced $ 80 million from its IDA window and $ 20 million from its pandemic funding mechanism.

The United Kingdom announced an additional $ 63 million to combat the Ebola virus earlier this month in Geneva, while then-Secretary of Development Rory Stewart said some donors thought wrongly that the answer was fully funded. "The World Bank has made very positive comments about how it has controlled everything. They did not do it, he said. The current strategic response plan has an overall funding gap of more than $ 38 million, although some aspects of the response do better than others.

The DRC's health minister resigned earlier this week, decrying strong pressure to introduce a new experimental vaccine and the decision in his absence to manage the response through a multi-sectoral team reporting directly to the president.

"The coordination structure is currently being reviewed and an updated strategic response plan for ebola will be presented very soon," Pariat said.

She added that "the number of new infections is steadily increasing," adding that it is "worrisome" that about half of all cases can be attributed to cases of Ebola already known.

A spokesman for the WHO told Devex that last week it was possible to find 74% of cases immediately: 54% because they had been registered as being in contact with the virus before appearing with symptoms and 20% related to health centers or other contexts. where they were exposed.

"For the 26% without immediate apparent source, it often takes a few days to gain access to communities, conduct a thorough investigation to identify the source of the infection and record, consolidate and badyze all data and information collected," A said the spokesperson. "Thus, over time, most cases are ultimately linked to a source case, a health facility, or another source. We therefore believe that there are probably few "unknown" transmission chains in affected communities.