Speaking in Brussels, Ms Sirleaf said: "We believe that a regional approach would achieve the best recovery results. This can only be achieved with your support, the support of partners who will be willing to allocate resources to a regional plan that is home-grown."

 

"There is no doubt that this will require significant resources, perhaps even a Marshall Plan... We believe however that this can be achieved through allocation of the additional resources committed by the European Commission", she said.

"Resources can also be sourced from the CCR [Catastrophe Containment and Relief] Trust Fund established by the International Monetary Fund and by regional envelopes by the World Bank and the African Development Bank."

'Painstaking task'

On Monday the UN said that the struggle to contain the epidemic was reaching a "second phase".

UN experts say the spread of the disease in West Africa has dropped to almost 10% of what it was six months ago.

Liberia in particular continues to have a low level of transmission, with only one new confirmed case in the week leading to 22 February. This compares to 34 in Guinea and 63 in Sierra Leone.

But the UN special envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, told AP that the international community should not become complacent as getting to zero cases was "the hardest part".

"It's a really difficult, painstaking task," he said.

The BBC's Anne Soy, in Brussels, says that there is a danger of donor fatigue, even though the Ebola outbreak has received a lot of attention from the international community.

The healthcare systems of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will also need help to recover from the effects of the outbreak.

Scarce healthcare resources have had to be directed to controlling the epidemic and it has become harder to get treatment for other diseases.