Obama Urges Countries, Businesses to Boost Ebola Response

President Barack Obama urged countries, foundations and businesses to step up contributions to the global response to Ebola, calling the disease a “threat to the world” while emphasizing that the U.S. would keep leading the effort.

“I want us to be clear: we are not moving fast enough,” Obama said at a meeting on the Ebola outbreak held alongside this week’s United Nations General Assembly session in New York. “Right now everybody has the best of intentions, but people are not putting in the kinds of resources that are necessary to put a stop to this epidemic.”

The outbreak has hit Liberia hardest and affected four other West African countries, killing at least 2,900 people and infecting at least 6,200, according to the World Health Organization report. The World Bank has said the economic costs of the outbreak will be “catastrophic” if the virus continues to spread.

“Ebola is raging. It kills more than 200 people a day, two thirds of them women,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who headed today’s meeting. “Despite the valiant efforts of local communities, health systems are buckling under the strain.”

The disease may cost Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three nations with the most infections, as much as $809 million, the World Bank said on Sept. 17.

The outbreak has made clear the need for faster action in the future, Ban said. He suggested creating an international standby corps of medical professionals backed by the WHO and the UN’s logistical capacity, similar to UN peacekeepers that prevent conflicts and rebuild countries torn by war.

“This crisis has highlighted the need to strengthen early identification systems and early action,” Ban said. “Just as our troops in blue helmets help keep people safe, a corps in white coats could help keep people healthy.”

Obama pledged Sept. 16 to send 3,000 troops to the region and help build many as 20 100-bed treatment centers. Obama said the U.S. also would train about 500 health-care providers. Troops have started arriving in Liberia, and are assessing sites for the treatment units.

Much of the current effort has been handled by not-for-profit aid and missionary groups. Rick Sacra, a U.S. doctor infected in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, was released from a Nebraska hospital today after being flown to the U.S. for treatment.

“I feel great except that I am extremely weak,” he said at a press conference at Nebraska Medical Center, in Omaha. “I view Liberia as my second home so I think the odds are good that I’ll be back.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated there could be 21,000 total cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone by Sept. 30. Cases have been under-reported, the disease agency has said, and without increased control efforts could total 550,000 to 1.4 million by Jan. 20.

To prevent that from happening, national and global organizations have stepped up their response. The World Bank today announced it will add $170 million, to almost double to $400 million, funding to the countries worst affected by Ebola.

“The real challenge now is to bring care and treatment to the most remote areas, as well as the cities, and then to build a stronger health care system,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said at today’s UN meeting. “This funding will help the countries start a massive scale-up of training of community health workers and bring needed supplies and equipment.”

Obama used one of two addresses this week to the UN to call for more spending, medical equipment and personnel to help the impoverished African countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Obama will host a summit on global health security with representatives from 44 countries tomorrow in Washington. The event was announced in February, two months after the first cases in the largest Ebola outbreak in history appeared.

UN chief Ban last week appointed David Nabarro as a special UN envoy on Ebola and created an emergency UN mission to merge and more efficiently coordinate actions. UN staff have arrived in the three most affected countries and in Ghana, where the emergency mission will be headquartered, Ban said today.

To contact the reporters on this story: Angela Greiling Keane in Washington at agreilingkea@bloomberg.net; Margaret Talev in New York at mtalev@bloomberg.net; Sangwon Yoon in United Nations at syoon32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Steven Komarow at skomarow1@bloomberg.net Drew Armstrong