Canada to give $30M more for battle with Ebola
NEW YORK — Canada will give another $30 million to the fight against the Ebola virus, which is ravaging West African countries and threatens to spread.
In announcing the new funds Thursday at the United Nations, International Development Minister Christian Paradis criticized the efforts to co-ordinate aid at a global level.
“Canada continues to be deeply concerned by the inadequate coordination efforts,” he said. The new money is for treatment, prevention plus humanitarian support such as food.
Canada previously pledged $3.8 million and promised about 1,000 vials of an experimental anti-Ebola drug. These vaccines have not been sent.
Dr. Gregory Taylor, Canada’s chief public health officer, told the CBC there are still logistics questions about how and where to send the vaccines, which must be kept refrigerated.
The virus has killed about 3,000 people since July and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said this week it could spread to more than 1.5 million by January.
David Morley, UNICEF Canada’s president and CEO, welcomed the additional funding.
“Ebola is spreading like wildfire across West Africa, putting 10 million children at risk,” he said. “This is a crisis of unprecedented proportions in our lifetime and the response must be equally large in scale, swift and effective in order to save lives and contain the spread of this deadly disease. Support from Canada and other donor countries can’t come quickly enough as the spread of Ebola is outpacing global efforts to combat it.”
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and the High Representative of the European Union said “there appears to be no standard cure against the Ebola virus yet.”
“We underscore our willingness to provide relief to the countries ravaged by the virus and emphasize our common understanding that Ebola is a common global threat to peace and security.”