AU creates $750m special fund to fight Ebola

The African Union (AU) on Saturday created a 750-million dollar special fund for curbing the spread of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in some parts of West Africa. Dr Dlamini Zuma, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, announced this shortly after a business round table with members of the private sector at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa on Saturday. The commission had invited the private sector to raise the funds as part of effort to deploy more volunteer workers to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The virus had infected some 13,000 people and had killed 4,900 so far. The commission had also deployed146 volunteers on the platform of AU programme on Ebola to the affected countries within the last two months. Zuma said that the fund would be managed by a private sector-led board while the AfDB would administer it. The private sector, led by the African Development Bank (AfDB), made commitment to immediately raise 28.5 million dollars to facilitate the deployment of an initial 1,000 volunteers to the three countries. AfDB President Donald Kaberuka, Mr Carloz Lopez, the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and Mr Jean-Luis Ekra, President of Afrexim Bank, were among the leaders that attended the event. (NAN)