Ebola: Belgium makes €2.5 million available to fund air transports

Belgium has decided to earmark an additional €2.5 million of emergency aid to finance UNICEF and UNHAS (United Nations Humanitarian Air Service) air transports as part of efforts to fight ebola, announced Development Cooperation Minister Alexander De Croo on Sunday.

This aid should enable the UN organisations to transport medicine and isolation equipment, among other things, to the West African countries affected by the epidemic.

Aid workers often have to work in extremely challenging conditions in these countries, and demand for medicine and medical equipment is very high.

Food may also be transported – the ebola epidemic is having deleterious effects on food distribution in the affected West African countries, which are now at risk of a food crisis as well as the health crisis they are already facing.

The additional €2.5 million supplements the €7 million already donated by the Development Cooperation Minister to fund management of the ebola crisis by Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF and the International Federation of the Red Cross.