NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) – The US State Department on Wednesday pledged an additional $267 million toward fighting the Ebola outbreak in central Africa, as health authorities battle to get the deadly virus under control.
Senior State Department officials announced the funding on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, where they hoped other countries would pledge new funds toward a target of $2 billion to deal with the disease, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The outbreak was detected in May and is already the second most lethal on record, behind one in West Africa from 2014 to 2016.
The pledge brings the Trump administration’s commitment to tackling the outbreak to $886 million, including $107 million from the Department of Health and Human Services in addition to State Department funding.
The assistance would help countries contain the outbreak at its source, one of the officials said, such as for building treatment facilities, providing diagnostics and medical countermeasures for health workers in the field.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
