Mission set up to combat Ebola: UN

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that he has established a UN mission to combat Ebola with the advance teams to be deployed to West Africa Monday.

"The UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) will provide the operational framework and unity of purpose to ensure the rapid, effective and coherent action necessary to stop the outbreak, to treat the infected, to ensure essential services, to preserve stability and to prevent the spread to countries currently unaffected," Ban said in a statement issued Friday.

"I have issued instructions that UNMEER deploy teams to the mission headquarters in Ghana and to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone by Monday," Xinhua quoted Ban as saying.

Ban said he will appoint a special representative to head the mission and accelerate support to the countries and people most affected by the Ebola crisis.

The announcement came after the unanimous adoption of a General Assembly resolution on Ebola, in which the body agreed to harness capabilities across the UN system in a single, unified structure to ensure a rapid, effective, efficient and coherent response to the crisis.

On Thursday, the Security Council passed a resolution, which declared the Ebola virus outbreak a threat to international peace and security.

The Ebola outbreak was first confirmed in Guinea March 22 and soon spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Since the outbreak, the virus has killed at least 2,600 people in West Africa.

The number of cases is doubling every three weeks.