News outlets report on the World Bank President Jim Kim’s appeal for Western countries to support a $20 billion global health fund for reacting instantly to public health emergencies, as well as findings from a World Bank report estimating the potential economic loss caused by Ebola in West African countries.

The Guardian: Ebola crisis: global response has ‘failed miserably’, says World Bank chief
“The president of the World Bank, Jim Kim, admitted on Wednesday that the international community had ‘failed miserably’ in its response to the Ebola virus that has killed more than 3,800 people in West Africa and warned that the crisis now affecting Spain and the U.S. was going to get much worse. Amid signs yesterday that western governments were being forced to take the risks of a global pandemic more seriously, Kim said he wanted them to back a new $20bn (£12bn) global health fund that would be able to react instantly to emergencies…” (Elliott, 10/8).

NPR: World Bank Says Ebola Could Inflict Enormous Economic Losses
“West Africa is a poor region, struggling to improve its economic growth. It had been succeeding. Last year, Sierra Leone and Liberia ranked second and sixth among countries with the highest growth in gross domestic product in the world. But this year, growth has stopped because of the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. On Wednesday, the World Bank released a report saying the epidemic’s economic cost could reach $32.6 billion by the end of 2015 if the outbreak spreads…” (Geewax, 10/8).