UK pledges £80m more aid to tackle Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone

UPDATE:   EUROPEAN UNION ANNOUNCES ADDITIONAL FUNDING, NAMES AN EBOLA COORDINATOR 

NEW YORK TIMES   

By James Kanter and Andrew Higgins                                                                      OCT. 24, 2014

BRUSSELS--

...  Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, announced tody that Christos Stylianides, the coming European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, would be named Ebola coordinator.

“Europe will give its contribution to allow this terrible scourge that is besetting the countries of Western Africa to be combated effectively,” Ms. Merkel said.

Facing criticism that it did not respond swiftly enough to the scale of the current outbreak, the European Commission on Thursday announced €24.4 million, or about $30 million, in new research funding. Part of that donation will go to finance the large-scale testing in West Africa of treatments that use antibodies taken from the blood of Ebola patients who recovered.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/world/europe/britain-pledges-millions-to-fight-ebola-and-chides-others-to-spend-more.html?_r=2

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THE GUARDIAN                                Oct. 23, 2014

By Ian Traynor

BRUSSELS -- Briish Prime Minister David Cameron pledged a further £80m aid for Sierra Leone to combat the Ebola epidemic as he told European leaders they should commit more resources to containing and eradicating the virus.

The prime minister announced the aid at an European council summit in Brussels, bringing Britain’s pledge to £205m, about a third of the amount pledged by the EU as a whole.

David Cameron arrives for the European council meeting in Brussels. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

A draft statement prepared for the summit said the EU had already donated €500m (£395m) to tackle Ebola, excluding the new British funds. Downing Street said Britain was spending considerably more than Germany or France on the crisis and that so far it had pledged more than another 19 of the 28 EU countries combined.

“We can all do more. We should all do more,” said a Downing Street spokeswoman. “We are prepared to put more on the table. We want to lead from the front.” She added that Britain was contributing 50 times more than Spain, which knew “the stark reality of Ebola”.

UK officials said the company Ikea, which has donated €5m to countering the outbreak, had done more than 18 EU governments, several of which were among the world’s wealthiest countries.

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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/23/uk-aid-ebola-epidemic-sierra-leone-eu-david-cameron