World Bank proposes pandemic facility against potential health disasters

The international community should establish an effective system to help all countries prepare for potentially catastrophic disasters like the Ebola outbreak, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said Tuesday.

"The Ebola outbreak has been devastating in terms of lives lost and the loss of economic growth in the worst-affected countries," Kim said in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington.

"We need to prepare for future pandemics that could become far more deadly and infectious than Ebola," he added.

He said the World Bank has been cooperating with the World Health Organization, other UN agencies, academics, and re-insurance companies to work on a concept of developing a pandemic facility, which would help all countries prepare for potential catastrophic disasters.

The facility would likely involve a combination of bonds and insurance instruments, said the World Bank chief, adding that a proposal on the facility will be presented to leaders of both developed and developing countries in the coming months.

Kim said multilateral organizations, governments, businesses, non-governmental groups and donors need to put more efforts into planning for future possible pandemics, "by building stronger health systems, improved surveillance and chains of supply and transportation, and fast-acting medical response teams."

Despite intense international efforts to contain Ebola, the deadly virus has so far killed nearly 9,000 people since it surfaced in West Africa less than one year ago. Endi