VENTURE CAPITAL POST

A steep fall in Ebola cases in Liberia will make it hard to prove whether experimental vaccines work in a major clinical trial about to start in the country, the head of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Saturday.

U.S. regulators warned investors of stock scams tied to West Africa's Ebola outbreak and suspended trading in four small companies that they said have made unverifiable claims about products to prevent or treat the deadly virus.

The United States on Tuesday proposed that the International Monetary Fund write off some $100 million in debt it is owed by Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to free up more resources for those countries, the hardest hit by the Ebola outbreak.

The president of Emirates airlines [EMIRA.UL] said on Thursday that demand for flights to Africa from Asia has fallen due to concerns over the Ebola virus.

The largest-ever outbreak of Ebola could drain billions of dollars from economies in West Africa by the end of next year if the epidemic is not contained, the World Bank said in an analysis on Wednesday.

Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen's charitable foundation on Thursday will announce it is donating $9 million to support U.S. efforts to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, a source familiar with the matter said.

Ebola is causing enormous damage to West African economies, draining budgetary resources and slashing economic growth by up to 4 percent as foreign businessmen leave and projects are canceled, the African Development Bank president said.

A British national living in Sierra Leone has tested positive for Ebola, the first Briton to fall victim to the deadly disease that has spread across the West African region since March, the Department of Health said on Saturday.

Texas-based Endeavor Energy announced that it has inked a joint development agreement with Joule Africa to construct the USD500 million Bumbana Phase II Power Project. Endeavor Energy obtained a USD100 million funding from private equity firm Denham Capital.