Ebola outbreak: World Bank pledges $170 million in new funding to combat spread of deadly virus in West Africa

Health care workers in Monrovia, Liberia (Getty)

The World Bank has pledged another $170 million to help countries in West Africa contain the spread of Ebola infections.

The new funding, which takes the total to $400 million, will be used to increase the healthcare workforce deployed in the region and provide essential supplies in some of the worst affected countries, including Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leon.

The World Bank previously approved a $230 million Ebola aid package, including $117 million in emergency funding, for the three countries.

More people have died in this year's epidemic in West Africa than in all previous Ebola outbreaks combined since the virus was first discovered in 1976.

"The global community is now responding with the urgency and the scale needed to begin to turn back this unprecedented Ebola crisis,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, speaking at the United Nations.

"The real challenge now is to bring care and treatment to the most remote areas as well as the cities and then to build a stronger health care system," he added.