While there has been important progress over recent months, the Ebola epidemic remains a pressing challenge, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, stressing that on the road to eradicating the scourge the "last mile" may be the toughest.

"Our Marathon effort has been a success", Ban told a special high-level event on Ebola convened as part of the World Bank's annual spring meetings in Washington, D.C.

However, "too many lives have been lost. Families, communities and nations have been devastated", he said. "When we reach zero cases, we must maintain our response capacity for at least a year." In connection with the event, the World Bank announced that it would provide at least $650 million during the next year and a half to help the most-affected countries Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone recover from the social and economic impact of the outbreak. The new pledge brings the World Bank's total financing for Ebola recovery to $1.62 billion.
Source: QNA