HEALTH EBOLA-WORLD BANK World Bank president says economic impact of Ebola could be "catastrophic" for West Africa

Record ID: 565600

  • Title: HEALTH EBOLA-WORLD BANK World Bank president says economic impact of Ebola could be "catastrophic" for West Africa
  • Date: 9th October 2014
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 9, 2014) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** WORLD BANK PRESIDENT JIM YOUNG KIM WALKS ON STAGE WIDE SHOT OF ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD BANK PRESIDENT JIM YONG KIM SAYING: "I've just come from a meeting focused on the Ebola epidemic and we had an extremely productive discussion. We had President Conde from Guinea with us and we had President Johnson Sirleaf and President Koroma on video conference. They not only addressed us. They made extremely specific requests based on what they need now in the countries to focus the response. The crisis we know could have an enormous impact. Just yesterday we gained a better understanding of the potential economic damage from the outbreak. The World Bank Group released a new economic impact assessment that said if the epidemic is not quickly contained and if it spreads to neighboring countries, the two year regional financial impact could reach US $32.6 billion dollars by the end of 2015. That would be catastrophic for the people of the West Africa region. One of the things that Secretary of State of the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom Justine Greening pointed out was that every day that we don't invest, every day that we we don't put money into stopping the crisis is many many more dollars and pounds that we're going to have to use later. It is an extremely good investment right now to prevent this kind of loss, to put all the money on the table right now to get the response going. The World Health Organization has just estimated that Liberia alone for example needs 360 foreign medical staff today to treat those infected. Now one of the sticking points of getting foreign medical staff into these three countries has been the lack of medical evacuation. We heard this morning from the European Commission and from the United States that both of those groups have now committed to medically evacuating health workers and other workers, the responders. This has been a major roadblock and now with the announcement this morning I think we are on a much better path to staff the response." WIDE SHOT OF ROOM
  • Embargoed: 24th October 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAD0Q84BWOU0SAUNSA4DC94ET0A
  • Story Text: World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said Thursday (October 9) the economic impact on West Africa will be "catastrophic" if the world doesn't invest in controlling the Ebola epidemic.
    Kim made the comments as the world's finance ministers and central bankers gather in Washington, D.C. for the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's semi-annual meetings this weekend.
    "We had President Conde from Guinea with us and we had President Johnson Sirleaf and President Koroma on video conference. They not only addressed us. They made extremely specific requests based on what they need now in the countries to focus the response. The crisis we know could have an enormous impact. Just yesterday we gained a better understanding of the potential economic damage from the outbreak. The World Bank Group released a new economic impact assessment that said if the epidemic is not quickly contained and if it spreads to neighboring countries, the two year regional financial impact could reach US $32.6 billion dollars by the end of 2015. That would be catastrophic for the people of the West Africa region. One of the things that Secretary of State of the Department for International Development of the United Kingdom Justine Greening pointed out was that every day that we don't invest, every day that we we don't put money into stopping the crisis is many many more dollars and pounds that we're going to have to use later. It is an extremely good investment right now to prevent this kind of loss, to put all the money on the table right now to get the response going," Kim said.
    Kim said a major hurdle has also been cleared in helping affected countries now that the European Commission and the United States have committed to medically evacuating health workers when necessary.
    The poverty-fighting institution has pledged $400 million to fight the Ebola outbreak.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register