MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) – The government of China has offered Ebola disease prevention materials worth $840,000 to Benin, an unnamed source in Cotonou told Xinhua on Wednesday.
The corresponding agreement was signed by Benin's Foreign Minister Arifari Bako Nassirou and China's ambassador to the country Tao Weiguang on Monday.
Weiguang also announced that the Chinese Embassy would give $20,000 to the Benin Red Cross to speed up preparations for the Ebola disease.
The current Ebola outbreak was first reported in the beginning of the year in Guinea and then spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. The Ebola death toll in West Africa has risen to more than 2,800 since the epidemic started, according to the latest WHO estimates.
There has been no recorded Ebola cases in Benin yet but the country, which borders Nigeria in the east, fears that commercial traffic from Lagos (Nigeria's economic capital) might trigger the outbreak of the disease.
There is no officially approved medication for Ebola. However, several countries, including Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan, are currently working on vaccines.
