The Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) created a ‘solidarity fund’ to contain and manage the outbreak, [17] and the World Health Organisation convened an emergency meeting of regional health ministers in Accra to strengthen surveillance operations and facilitate cross-border consultations. [18] The World Health Organisation also opened a Sub-Regional Outbreak Coordinating Center in Conakry. [19] Doctors Without Borders has deployed 300 personnel to assist in health care facilities, and both the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the European Union have provided scientific personnel and resources to assist with laboratory testing and government coordination. [20]

The World Health Organisation fulfilled its coordinating mission by organising a meeting of regional health officials in Accra in early July—but that was three-and-a-half months after the first report of the disease. WHO’s Sub-Regional Outbreak Coordination Center has the potential to be a useful resource, but it took nearly four months from the outbreak’s beginning until WHO began such operations. Given how quickly Ebola spreads and its virulence, such a delay helped the disease gain a foothold in the region. Arresting the spread of infectious diseases requires quicker action.

First, the current response needs to be ratcheted up. Opening sub-regional command centers, deploying personnel from governmental and nongovernmental sources, and providing financial resources are all important—but they need to be done in greater number and with greater urgency. The initial efforts are not necessarily failures; they are just too small and slow in response to the overwhelming nature of this unprecedented outbreak.

"We are losing the battle," World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim warned, blaming a lack of international solidarity in efforts to stem the epidemic.

"Certain countries are only worried about their own borders," he told reporters in Paris.

The East African Community bloc comprising Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania announced it was sending more than 600 health workers to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

This follows a memorandum of understanding between the Government of Sierra Leone and the UN Agencies to implement the US$ 28 million World Bank-funded Ebola Response Project, of which US$ 9.5 million was allocated to WFP to deliver food and non-food items.

The World Bank partnership with government and the UN Agencies is part of concerted efforts to stop the rapid spread of Ebola Virus Disease in Sierra Leone. It seeks to scale up the country's logistical and operational capacity and mitigate the economic impact on affected communities.

The first component, support to the EVD outbreak response plans and strengthening essential health services will contribute to finance critical gaps in ongoing emergency response efforts funded by governments and development partners in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

he second component, human resources scale up for outbreak response and essential health services will supplement the efforts of governments and other partners to motivate and reward health workers in the affected countries to work on the EVD emergency response and provide other essential health services.

The third component, provision of food and basic supplies to quarantined populations and EVD affected household's aims to improve access to food and other basic supplies for the EVD affected households in the quarantined areas and other hot zones in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. 

The Security Council in September passed a resolution that declared Ebola a threat to international peace and security. On Tuesday, it heard sobering alarms about Ebola’s widening impact on the region.

Hervé Ladsous, the under secretary general for peacekeeping, told the Council that 39 peacekeepers in Liberia were currently “under quarantine or are being closely watched for possible exposure.”

While the United States, Canada and Britain have taken emergency steps to screen international passengers to limit the risk of importing Ebola, most of Europe is still struggling with that issue.

The W.H.O.’s goal is what it calls “70-70-60” — safe burials for 70 percent of victims, and 70 percent of suspected cases isolated, within 60 days of the date it set this goal.

We can see this clearly on Fox News, where Andrea Tantaros parroted the idea that African countries "do not believe in traditional medical care" and that residents might "seek treatment from a witch doctor that practices santería." Congressman Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) suggested that we should fear migrants because they might carry "deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis," while CNN suggested Ebola is the "ISIS of biological agents." (It's no coincidence that both are "foreign" entities.)