General News
Ebola Fight Needs $430m to End Record Outbreak-WHO
More than $430 million will be needed to bring the worst Ebola outbreak on record under control, according to a draft document laying out the World Health Organization’s (WHO) battle strategy.
The plan sets a goal of reversing the trend in new cases within two months, and stopping all transmission in six to nine months.
It requires funding by governments, development banks, the private sector and in-kind contributions, according to the document obtained by Bloomberg News.
The current outbreak, which has killed 1,427 people in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, may soon exceed all previous Ebola outbreaks combined.
The sum now being sought is six times more than the $71 million the WHO suggested was needed in a plan published less than a month ago.
“There is reason to be concerned about whether the proposed resources would be adequate,” said Barry Bloom, a public health professor at Harvard University who also questioned whether the funds would be made available face enough, and whether the organization’s latest plan would ensure the expertise from WHO that is needed.
“The WHO plans to publish the plan by the end of this week at the earliest and details may change,” said Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the Geneva-based agency. United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon this month appointed health crisis expert David Nabarro to coordinate the UN response.
WHO criticized The European Commission and aid groups including Doctors Without Borders have criticized the WHO for a lack of leadership in coordinating the fight against the outbreak.
Clearly WHO didn’t foresee this outbreak and while the Ebola crisis was clear in March, it didn’t act until August to declare an emergency, Bloom said in an e-mail. J. Stephen Morrison, director of the global health policy center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, had a different view.
The scale of the disease’s devastation goes far beyond what health officials had seen previously, he said in a telephone interview.
“It’s not a question of incompetence or complacency,” according to Morrison, who said the WHO should be able to raise the money needed. It’s the fact we’re catching up with the unknown, and it’s way ahead of us. Treatment centers More than half the cost will be needed for the treatment, isolation and referral centers that are bearing the brunt of the epidemic, according to the WHO plan. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone are among the world’s poorest countries, and weak health systems combined with a lack of experienced health-care workers has contributed to the epidemic, the WHO has said.
“The response at the beginning wasn’t robust enough,” David Heymann, a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who worked on the first recorded Ebola outbreak in 1976.
It’s a step forward that they’ve made the plans and I’m glad they’re emphasizing rapid containment as a start.
The WHO this month declared Ebola in West Africa a public health emergency of international concern. A separate outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed as many as 13 people, the government in that country said on Monday.
In West Africa, more than 240 health care workers have been infected and 120 have died, the agency said in a statement yesterday. Among them is Abraham Borbor, the deputy chief medical officer of Liberia’s John F. Kennedy Medical Center, who died despite being treated with Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.’s experimental ZMapp medicine, the nation’s information minister said. Experimental drug Borbor was one of three Liberian health-care workers being treated with ZMapp, the same drug that was used on two American aid workers who were evacuated to the US after being infected in Liberia.
Closely held Mapp, based in San Diego, has said its supply of the drug is exhausted. A British health worker, William Pooley, was flown home for treatment at London’s Royal Free hospital after being infected in Sierra Leone, Public Health England said in a statement on Monday.
Pooley is receiving excellent care, his family said in a statement on the hospital’s website, as it asked everyone to remember those in other parts of the world suffering with Ebola who do not have access to the same health-care facilities as Will.
A Senegalese disease-tracker working with the WHO in Sierra Leone also became infected, making him the first of the agency’s 400 workers in the affected countries to fall ill with the deadly virus, the WHO said. Evolving epidemic The epidemic continues to evolve in alarming ways, with the severely affected countries, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, struggling to control the escalating outbreak against a backdrop of severely compromised health systems, significant deficits in capacity and rampant fear, according to the draft of the WHO’s so-called road map.
Clearly a massively scaled and coordinated international response is needed to support affected and at-risk countries. The document has been shared with the WHO’s partners for comment and will be published once their feedback has been received, Chaib said.
The final document will include a country- by-country plan for dealing with the outbreak, she said. Bloomberg
Dangote Petroleum Refinery is reportedly nearing completion of a $2.5 billion private placement that values the company at about $40 billion ahead of its planned public listing.
Private placement is the direct sale of company shares or bonds to pre-selected investors instead of the general public and it is used to raise money quickly while avoiding strict public reporting rules.
People familiar with the transaction said investors acquired as much as 6 per cent of the refinery, according to a BusinessDay report.
The reported terms would value the business at approximately $40 billion.
Neither Dangote Group nor the refinery has publicly announced the final amount raised, the identities of most subscribers or the precise percentage sold.
The figures should therefore be treated as transaction details supplied by unnamed sources rather than confirmed company disclosures.
The reported $2.5 billion total is nevertheless significant as it indicates strong demand for exposure to a privately controlled refinery that has rapidly become central to Nigeria’s fuel supply and an increasingly important exporter of petroleum products.
The placement was said to have attracted more demand than the available shares, allowing the company to secure substantially more than the amount initially associated with the fundraising exercise.
Femi Otedola, chairman, First HoldCo, is the only major participant publicly identified in the report.
He reportedly committed $100 million to the transaction and sold his investment in Geregu Power Plc to finance the acquisition.
Nigeria’s pension industry was also reportedly cleared to participate.
Access to more than $17 billion in retirement assets would broaden the refinery’s potential investor base beyond wealthy individuals and conventional institutional buyers.
Participation by Pension Fund Administrators would, however, require careful attention to valuation, liquidity and portfolio-concentration limits.
Retirement funds must balance the attraction of a large Nigerian industrial asset against their responsibility to protect contributors’ savings.
The implied $40 billion valuation represents investor expectations about the refinery’s future earnings rather than only the physical cost of constructing the facility.
Its ability to process 650,000 barrels of crude daily gives it a central role in supplying Nigeria and other markets, but its commercial performance remains connected to crude availability, product prices, exchange rates and regulation.
The refinery has struggled to obtain all the Nigerian crude it requires under the government’s naira-for-crude arrangement.
It has consequently purchased some feedstock internationally and recently moved local petroleum-product pricing into dollars to align sales revenue more closely with its foreign-currency expenses.
Those constraints will be important during any public offering.
Prospective shareholders will want greater clarity on crude-supply contracts, debt, operating margins, export revenue and the company’s relationship with Nigerian regulators.
It is also unclear whether the private placement involved newly issued shares, a sale by existing owners or a combination of both.
That distinction determines whether the reported $2.5 billion becomes fresh capital for the refinery or proceeds received by selling shareholders.
The transaction could provide a useful price reference for the planned initial public offering.
Federal government will next month launch Nigeria’s first national organized crime strategy to strengthen the country’s response to terrorism, cybercrime, human and drug trafficking, kidnapping, illicit financial flows, and other forms of organized crime.
Major General Adamu Laka, national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre under the Office of the National Security Adviser, disclosed this in Abuja during the validation of the strategy document.
He said the strategy provides a coordinated national framework for tackling organized crime through improved intelligence sharing, stronger collaboration among security agencies, and closer cooperation with the criminal justice system, civil society organizations, and international partners.
Major General Laka explained that the document was developed through a partnership involving the Federal Government, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United States Government, and other stakeholders.
Speaking at the event, Cheikh Toure, UNODC representative, said the strategy would strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to combat transnational crimes, including drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking, kidnapping, and illicit financial flows.
Also speaking, Douglas Grane, acting director of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, reaffirmed the U.S. government’s support for Nigeria’s efforts to tackle organized crime through stronger inter-agency and international cooperation.
Representatives of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, and the National Cyber Security Centre also endorsed the initiative, describing it as a major step towards improving Nigeria’s fight against organized crime.
FATE Foundation, with funding from the Citi Foundation, has launched the Youth Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme to equip young people in Nigeria with financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills.
Delivered through free, safe, and accessible platforms, the programme supports the incubation and scaling of youth-led enterprises, enabling income generation and job creation.
In October 2025, FATE Foundation was selected as a recipient of Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge to Accelerate Youth Employability. Joining the cohort of 50 organisations globally, the Foundation will receive $500,000 over two years to advance its youth employability initiative.
“We are excited to be selected for Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge,” said Ayomide Akindolie-Igwe, Executive Director of FATE Foundation.
“This support enables us to equip young entrepreneurs in Nigeria with the financial literacy and skills needed to build and scale sustainable businesses.”
The programme addresses youth employability by tackling Africa’s growing jobs crisis. By 2030, the African continent will be home to 40% of the world’s youth, and with one in three under 35 already unemployed, this initiative will support Nigerian youth with a two-phase approach. It begins with financial literacy training before progressing to entrepreneurship development, incubation support, and access to tools needed to build viable, job-creating businesses.
“Through this innovative initiative, FATE Foundation is supporting low-income Nigerian youth to develop essential financial and entrepreneurial skills using accessible platforms.
“This support is not just helping individuals to succeed; it is building a solid foundation for sustainable enterprises that will drive job creation and contribute significantly to our nation’s economic vitality. This initiative is empowering and investing in the future of Nigeria, one youth at a time,” said Nneka Enwereji, MD/CEO Citibank Nigeria Limited.
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