Interest building in global health corp November 14, 2014 - 9:05PM The proposal for a global public health corp that could be rapidly deployed to deal with epidemics such as the Ebola crisis ravaging West Africa is gathering support. The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, has revealed progress has been made in discussions on a proposal for countries to sign up to a contingency fund to prevent future outbreaks, that could instantly disperse billions of dollars for personnel, equipment and logistical support. Speaking on Friday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brisbane, Dr Kim said the fund would provide a "virtual buffer" for the world economy should another epidemic break out, with details of how it would work possibly finalised as early as the next six months. I just want to stress that pandemics, epidemics in fact are a very real downside risk to the global economy. They are also human tragedies, they are public health emergencies," Dr Kim said. It would require putting together something like a global public health corp. People from all over the world could be ready to respond at a moment's notice. The comments came amid calls from aid groups and world leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama, for the Ebola crisis to be elevated as a key issue at the G20 meeting, and for nations to do more to combat the deadly virus. Dr Kim said the fund could disperse millions and "many billions of dollars if necessary." If we had a flu pandemic it would move very quickly and potentially kill millions. We would need many billions of dollars dispersed right away," Dr Kim warned. The world's worst ever breakout of Ebola has killed more than 5000 people, mostly in five West African countries, since the beginning of the year.