Only one-quarter of the nearly $1 billion pledged to fight Ebola has been handed out, the United Nations said Friday.
The affected countries in Africa have received $256 million in humanitarian aid out of the $988 million, according to a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
{mosads}The U.N. office, which has coordinated the global fight against Ebola, warned that the “lagging” funding is hindering the effort to control the disease.
Dozens of countries, including the U.S., have pledged hundreds of millions to contain the disease that has killed more than 3,000 people.
But public officials and aid workers have complained that the money has been slowly trickling into the affected areas, where many health workers continue to lack basic medical supplies.
Denise Brown, regional director of the U.N. Food Programme, warned Friday that the Ebola outbreak is “running faster than the international community.”
Members of Congress are increasingly worried that the U.S. response to Ebola has been slowed by the tangle of federal agencies that have committed money and resources.
Leaders of the House Appropriations Committee raised concerns Friday that the Obama administration’s approach to funding the Ebola crisis has lacked “coordination and consistency.”
Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) has already signed off on a first installment of $50 million for the Pentagon’s effort to deploy troops to help contain the disease. But he requested more details from the White House about the strategy to combat Ebola and protect U.S. military members overseas.
Rogers also asked for a weekly report detailing U.S. agencies’ contributions to the response. Other Republicans have called for a single U.S. point-person on Ebola to manage the response, particularly funding.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said Thursday that lawmakers don’t know what resources are needed to control Ebola because “there is no person to go to, to tell us how all this is going to be funded.”