Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has made an impassioned plea for all nations to commit to the fight against Ebola, before a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday,.
The Nobel laureate said a generation of Africans were at risk of “being lost to economic catastrophe” because of the epidemic, warning that the time for talking and theorising was over.
“This fight requires a commitment from every nation that has the capacity to help – whether that is with emergency funds, medical supplies or clinical expertise,” she said in an open letter published by the BBC.
Germany’s foreign minister suggested on Sunday that the EU could send a civilian mission to west Africa to help combat the Ebola outbreak.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier told a meeting of health experts in Berlin that the EU needed to become faster and more effective, and should do a better job of sharing its capabilities in the fight against the virus.
He said the bloc should “at least consider sending its own civilian EU mission” to help. He did not detail what that would involve, but said it would offer EU member countries that were not represented in the region “a platform to send medical personnel”.
He added that the EU should consider setting up a pool of medical and logistical experts to help in future crises worldwide.