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EU Pledges 140M Euros to Fight Ebola in W. Africa


Medical workers of the Liberian Red Cross, wearing a protective suit, carry the body of a victim of the Ebola virus in a bag on Sept. 4, 2014 in the small city of Banjol, 30 kilometers from Monrovia.
Medical workers of the Liberian Red Cross, wearing a protective suit, carry the body of a victim of the Ebola virus in a bag on Sept. 4, 2014 in the small city of Banjol, 30 kilometers from Monrovia.

The European Union promised 140 million euros ($181 million) in assistance on Friday to bolster the overstretched health sectors of four West African nations struggling to halt the worst ever outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.

The funding will be used to strengthen health systems, train health workers and pay for mobile testing laboratories in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Guinea where over 1,900 people have died since the outbreak was identified in March.

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Click to enlarge

Over 97 million euros will be spent on budget support to Liberia and Sierra Leone in order to help them deliver public services, including healthcare, and maintain macroeconomic stability, the European Commission said in a statement.

"The situation is going from bad to worse,'' said Kristalina Georgieva, the EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response. "We are helping make a difference on the ground but the needs are outpacing the international community's capacity to react.''

The United Nations said on Wednesday that $600 million would be needed to fight the West African outbreak. (1 US dollar = 0.7716 euro)

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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