UN envoy pushes for more efforts to defeat Ebola virus in Africa

A United Nations envoy on Thursday called on African Union (AU) and member countries to come up with more efforts that would completely defeat Ebola disease which continues to kill thousands of people in West Africa.

Suzana Malcorra, United Nations Chef de Cabinet to the Executive Office, made the remarks in Arusha when speaking at the fifth Annual High Level Retreat on the Promotion of Peace, Security and Stability in Africa.

The three-day retreat was organized by the African Union in collaboration with Tanzania with the technical support from the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

The UN envoy said Africa is currently imperiled by the catastrophic crisis caused by the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.

"Ebola is a new enemy in Africa, so we need to come up with proper and collective measures to address this challenge," she said.

"We cannot afford to not treat to the well-being and prosperity of the region with the utmost seriousness. We must defeat it 100 percent, maybe 120 percent, no more or less," Malcorra told the board leadership of the AU Commission and its special envoys and representatives.

"Its exponential growth in the three affected countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea means that the disease must be completely defeated. Otherwise there will remain in the risk of the disease returning," she said.

She further called on AU officials to hatch best approaches that would address the epidemic that ruins socio-economic development of the natural resource-rich region.

Malcorra's call came at the time when the World Health Organization (WHO) figures show the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 4,800 people across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.