WHO runs low on cash for Ebola

Geneva - Progress in halting the spread of Ebola in West Africa will depend on mobilising funding and aid workers before the rainy season hits in April-May, but the World Health Organisation is set to run out of cash in mid-February, a senior WHO official said on Friday.

The number of Ebola cases week-on-week has declined for each of the past four weeks in hard-hit Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which is promising, said Dr Bruce Aylward, WHO assistant director-general in charge of the Ebola response.

"We run out of cash in mid-February, that is four or five months before that virus is going to stop in a best case scenario," Aylward told a news briefing in Geneva on Friday.

The UN health agency still needs $260m for its $350m budget for Ebola for the next six months, he said. "If you go into wet season with this disease you are looking at another hard year or plus," he added.

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