New York, US (PANA) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that he will in July convene an International Ebola Recovery Conference, which will help mobilize the resources needed to start early recovery.
“Next month, on July 10, I will convene an international Ebola recovery conference in New York, it will address Ebola recovery issues. The epidemic that has affected more than 27,000 people, killed over 11,000 mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone,” Ban said at an informal plenary session of the UN General Assembly on Ebola response efforts.
He noted that “all of investments, all of the sacrifices and lives lost, and all of the risks that the relief workers took would be squandered if the outbreak recurs.”
“My appeal to you is clear: we are in the last mile of the response, but the job is not done. We need you to persist in supporting the region in getting to a resilient zero cases and then beginning to recover,” the UN chief stressed.
As long as there are Ebola cases in any country in the region, he said, all of them are at risk.
Next month’s planned Ebola recovery conference will be followed by the African Union’s efforts to galvanize African people, their governments and their business leaders in solidarity with the affected communities and countries at a 20 July conference in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
While, Liberia was declared Ebola-free on May 9, after 42 days with no new cases, Guinea and Sierra Leone continue to record new transmissions.
