Leaders of the west African countries worst-hit by Ebola urged the world yesterday to back a "Marshall Plan" to help them rebuild their shattered economies.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma and Guinean President Alpha Conde pressed the need for recovery at an international conference in Brussels as the number of new Ebola cases slowed.
More than 9700 people have died of the disease since the west African epidemic emerged in southern Guinea in December 2013, with nearly 24000 people infected, according to the World Health Organisation.
"The impact of Ebola on our economies has been profound. The most important long-term response to Ebola rests in strategies for economic recovery," Johnson Sirleaf told the EU-backed conference.
"There is no doubt this will require significant resources, even a Marshall Plan," she said, referring to the US-led aid plan that rebuilt Europe after World War 2.
Conde also underlined the need for a recovery plan, telling a press conference that it was as if the region was "coming out of a war" with his country's economy and public services destroyed.
On Monday the IMF in Washington approved funding and debt relief worth about $187-million for Sierra Leone, with $85-million of that to be disbursed immediately.
The countries at the centre of the Ebola epidemic are forecast to lose 12% of their combined gross domestic product this year, according to World Bank estimates.
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