The heads of the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund will on Thursday morning hold talks with leaders of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, amid signs the virus is threatening to become a global pandemic.
The World Bank published new figures yesterday showing that in a worst case scenario, Ebola could wipe almost $33bn off the economies of the wider West African region over the next two years if the outbreak was not contained.
With the death toll rising towards 4,000, presidents Ernst Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Alpha Conde of Guinea will hold a breakfast meeting with Ban Ki-moon, Jim Yong Kim and Christine Lagarde.
The event comes just hours after it emerged that a nurse in Spain had become the first person to contract Ebola outside West Africa. Yesterday it was announced that the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the US had died, while a second patient was rushed to a Dallas hospital with “Ebola symptoms”.
The chief economist of the World Bank told Emerging Markets that Ebola could deliver a “devastating” shock to the global economy if it spreads to regions outside Africa.
Kaushik Basu said the economic impact was looking “very serious” and urged the richest countries to give more aid to stricken countries. “If it begins to spread a bit and if trade links begin to get cut off, then it could magnify,” he said.
“There is no point getting away from the fact that it could magnify into something massive that we have not seen [before]. If it starts to go into emerging economies we are talking of a very bleak scenario.”
Marshalling aid
He warned the economic impact would be exacerbated if countries started cancelling flights and imposing trade restrictions. “It is looking very serious. As it continues its rise in terms of numbers of people dying and the occasional case in the US or Spain, there is talk by people of cutting off flights from rich countries to these regions — you can’t shut the door on that debate.
“Should something like that happen, it will be devastating on economies because we live in a globalised world. Every economy is dependent on global interaction. There can be a massive negative impact and we are worried about that,” he said, adding that other countries did not have the same resources as the US to contain an epidemic.
“You worry that if you got one case in India or Indonesia, you are talking of a very different scenario,” he said.
Basu said the Bank would continue to appeal for more aid. “It is a miniscule part of the world that is well off — and so well off that it can afford to do more. The World Bank stands as the pivot of that effort to marshal money from the rich world and direct it towards the poor. We need to appeal to the world and to the top 1%.”
In a 71 page report published yesterday, the Bank’s economists said their worst case scenarios would justify the world spending billions of dollars to contain the outbreak, which has spread rapidly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone because of their creaking health infrastructure.
Campaign groups are urging the World Bank to shift investment towards funding universal health systems, rather than relying on private companies incentivised by profits. Nicolas Mombrial, head of the Washington office at Oxfam International, said: “It is crucial that donors learn the lesson and make long term financial commitments to support these countries to build free public health services that can cope with disasters such as Ebola.”