UN launches urgent appeal for donation

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has launched another urgent appeal for funds to help fight Ebola after a United Nations drive for donations fell short of its target.

The UN chief said a $1bn trust fund he launched in September has received just $100,000 (£62,000) so far.

He joins a growing chorus of world leaders criticising the global effort to tackle the Ebola outbreak.

The disease has killed about 4,500 people so far, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Donors have given almost $400m (£250m) to other UN agencies and aid organisations directly but the UN trust fund, intended to act as a flexible spending reserve, has itself only received pledges of just $20m (£12m).

Of those countries that have pledged money to the trust fund, only Colombia has paid, giving $100,000 (£62,000).

The UN special envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, said the fund was intended to offer "flexibility in responding to a crisis which every day brings new challenges".

"It allows the areas of greatest need to be identified and funds to be directed accordingly," he added.

Ban said it was time for the countries "who really have capacity" to provide financial and other logistical support.

Similar calls have been made in recent days by US President Barack Obama, UK PM David Cameron, and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has told the BBC he was "bitterly disappointed" with the international community's response.

"If the crisis had hit some other region it probably would have been handled very differently," he said in an interview with BBC Newsnight.

"In fact when you look at the evolution of the crisis, the international community really woke up when the disease got to America and Europe."

The World Health Organisation has said it is "ramping up" efforts to prevent Ebola spreading beyond the three countries most affected by the deadly virus.

WHO official Isabelle Nuttall said 15 African countries are being prioritised for help in prevention and protection, with the four countries directly bordering the affected areas - Ivory Coast, Guinea Bissau, Mali and Senegal - getting the most attention.

Meanwhile, President Obama has given the go-ahead for US military reservists to be deployed to West Africa if needed. They would join the 4,000 American troops already being sent to the region.

The president also said he was open to appointing someone to head the Ebola response in the US, a so-called czar.

The World Health Organisation yesterday said Senegal is officially free of Ebola with the benchmark of 42 days passing without any new cases.

But the country is not out of danger, given its location in Ebola-hit West Africa and proximity to the worst-hit countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, it said.

"WHO officially declares the Ebola outbreak in Senegal over and commends the country on its diligence to end the transmission of the virus," the UN health agency said in a statement.

Senegal's only confirmed Ebola case was a student who travelled by road from neighbouring Guinea -- where the outbreak began in December -- who crossed the border just before it was closed on August 21.