World Bank warns of the high cost of Ebola

Leaders from three West African countries met with representatives from the World Bank in Washington Thursday saying the Ebola outbreak could deliver a $32 billion dollar blow to the world economy by the end of 2015.

The disease has killed more than 3,400 in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Many in West Africa are going hungry and are destitute as some businesses have been shut down.

In the event of a low Ebola risk scenario, the spread of the disease would hit an impact of $3.8 billion by the end of 2015 but according to the World Bank’s new analysis, the economic impacts of ebola will be much more serious than that.

The President of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim says time is of the essence.

“As Tom Frieden, our leader of Centres for Disease Control has said many many times, the answer to this crisis is to stop it where it lies. So doing right by Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea is the right thing to do in all these dimensions. We’ve just got to get moving. If we don’t move quickly to contain the epidemic, as much as $32.6 billion dollars could be lost by 2015. This is a potentially catastrophic impact.”

According to a September report from the CDC, the worst-case scenario would be a total of 1.4 million Ebola cases in the next four months.

Kim says the international community needs to bring in more doctors, hospital beds, and more health and development support to stop the deadly spread.