By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The World Bank Group (WBG) on Tuesday announced the approval of $105 million to help fight the dreaded Ebola virus disease (EVD) in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

According to the World Bank, the grant is to help families and communities cope with the economic impact of the crisis, and rebuild and strengthen essential public health systems in the three (3) worst-affected countries to guard against future disease outbreaks.

‘’The new grant is part of the $200 million Ebola emergency mobilisation first announced by the WBG in early August,’’ the global development lender said.

The WBG affirmed that its new Ebola Emergency Response project will mobilise $52 million for Liberia, the country with the highest number of Ebola infections, $28 million for Sierra Leone, and $25 million for Guinea.

Also, the World Bank said allocations were calculated according to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) roadmap and assessments of the relative severity of the epidemic in each country.

‘’It would almost certainly mobilise more financing for the countries since the immediate response is still significantly under-resourced for the purposes of curbing the outbreak,” the WBG said.

Jim Yong Kim, WBG’s president presenting the new project to its board of executive directors, said the Ebola grant would have a long-term regional development impact.

He said it was an important part of a coordinated international response led by the United Nations (UN) and WHO.

“The world needs to do much, much more to respond to the Ebola crisis in these three countries. This new World Bank grant, which will arrive soon in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, will have an immediate, positive impact on their collective Ebola containment campaigns. I would like to personally thank our Board of Directors for responding so quickly to this crisis,” president Kim said.

In its project document for the new operation, the WBG notes that Ebola-related restrictions on people’s movements, “is leading to food crises in the quarantined and most affected areas where the three countries intersect. In the Mano River region, food insecurity is spreading rapidly. More than 1 million people in the region are facing a food crisis in the coming months. Furthermore, as the crisis continues to evolve, this threat may spread to other areas due to quarantine or other disruptions in movement of goods and people.”

The WBG affirmed that up to 40 percent of the new grant, which is financed by the WB’s IDA* Crisis Response Window that normally helps poor countries recover from severe natural disasters or economic crises, could be used for retroactive financing of eligible Ebola containment efforts in the three (3) worst-affected countries.

“I cannot praise the dedication and sacrifice enough of the health workers who form the backbone of the Ebola containment efforts in West Africa. This new WBG operation will provide them with the protective clothing and other medical equipment to keep them safe from the Ebola infection and will allow them to focus with more peace of mind on their frontline duty of delivering care and treatment to their patients,”says Makhtar Diop, the World Bank’s Vice President for Africa. “I also want to acknowledge the tireless work of the three governments in trying their best to contain this epidemic which as we know is the largest and most persistent Ebola outbreak anywhere in Africa since it was first discovered in 1976.”

While Timothy Evans, World Bank Group Senior Director for Health, Nutrition, and Population said containing the Ebola epidemic has been hampered by the already fragile health systems in the affected countries, putting recent health gains in the region at serious risk.

“To stop this epidemic and prevent future outbreaks, we need to ensure that these countries have the necessary trained health workers, essential supplies, and effective systems in place to respond,”   Evans said.

Further to this,the WBG says its new project will improve access to food and other basic supplies for Ebola-affected households in the quarantined areas and other “hot zones” in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Initially, this component will look to help as many as 395,000 people affected by Ebola in quarantined areas and other “hot zones.” The project will make sure food and safe drinking water are available “to prevent rapid deterioration of the worst-affected population’s food security and nutritional status.”