Obama urges U.N. to step up Ebola aid

UNITED NATIONS – President Barack Obama, in a sober assessment of international efforts to stem a deadly Ebola outbreak, warned a high-level United Nations gathering Thursday that there is a “significant gap” between what’s been offered so far and what is actually needed to stem the health crises in West Africa.

The leaders of the hardest-hit nations also appealed for more help, with the president of Sierra Leone calling the Ebola virus “worse than terrorism.”

The emergency U.N. session on Ebola reflected the deep concern about an outbreak that has so far killed nearly 3,000 people. U.S. health officials have warned that the number of infected people could explode to at least 1.4 million by mid-January, though they have also cautioned that the totals could peak well below that if efforts to control the outbreak are ramped up.

Despite the grim warnings, Obama said international aid simply is not flowing into West Africa fast enough.

“The outbreak is such where at this point, more people will die,” Obama said as he closed out three days of diplomacy at the annual gathering of the U.N. General Assembly. “So this is not one where there should be a lot of wrangling and people waiting to see who else is doing what. Everybody has got to move fast in order for us to make a difference.”

On Thursday, top lawmakers in Congress also approved the use of leftover Afghanistan war money to begin funding Obama’s $1 billion request to help fight the outbreak.

Obama has come under criticism from some in West Africa for a slow response to the outbreak. He outlined a more robust plan last week, announcing the U.S. would dispatch 3,000 U.S. troops to Liberia to set up facilities and form training teams to help with the response.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso announced Thursday that the European Union was increasing aid to tackle the outbreak by nearly $40 million.

The Ebola outbreak has hit Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea the hardest, leaving aid groups in the region scrambling desperately for resources.

“Our 150-bed facility in Monrovia opens for just 30 minutes each morning. Only a few people are admitted, to fill beds made empty by those who died overnight,” the president of Doctors Without Borders, Joanne Liu, told the U.N. meeting.

President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone, who spoke on a video feed, said his country was facing “life and death challenges” that were worse than the threat of terrorism.