United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Samantha Power has called for further education and understanding of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) among Africans and Ghanaians in particular as part of the means of checking its spread.

Addressing a news conference at the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) headquarters in Accra, the Ambassador said there is the need for an accelerated response to the epidemic to prevent further spread.

“Ebola is a virus that has generated a lot of fear…it is a virus that has no known boundaries, there is the need for far more commitments and far more deliveries and more cash for people who volunteer…,” she appealed.

Since its outbreak in March 2014, Ebola has killed nearly 5,000 people and sickened 10,000, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

As a means of containing the disease which has fast spread from the West African sub region to Europe and America, the U.S. Ambassador said her country would offer a sustained response to the Ebola crisis.

“We want to stand with the people in those countries and help them get through this. But we also recognize in coming toward the epidemic, running into the burning building as it were, that it is in our national security interest to do this”.

The US, she stated, would also help eliminate the rising Ebola curve.

 “I think we need to be very clear that our goal is not simply to bend the curve, it is to end the curve…and this is something because of the commitments that have been made, because of the mobilization that is being done, that we are confident will result, because it must result in the outstanding gaps being filled. We can see the day when those gaps are filled and when the curve is not simply bent, but is ended".

She further called for the support of countries that are not involved in fighting the outbreak.

“Whether it is something as basic as soap or whether it is the underfunded U.N. appeals. Whether it is the number of helicopters that can get people into the remote areas, there are huge gaps and countries that have not stepped up at this point have to step up…they can be part of a winning enterprise.”

UNMEER head, Anthony Banbury also called for more supplies, money and doctors adding the mission still needs to build 20 Ebola treatment centers and 300 community care centers, which are critical to ending the disease.