ACCRA, Oct. 19-- Top officials of United Nations (UN) agencies working to end the Ebola scourge in West Africa have urged the UN and the global community to adopt a unified and coordinated approach to the international support being provided to national response plans on Ebola eradication, a press release issued here late Saturday by the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) said.

This was contained in a framework produced after a four-day meeting on strengthening the international community's support to efforts by the governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to tackle the Ebola crisis.

The meeting which ended late Saturday was attended by the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary-General, Susana Malcorra; the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Margaret Chan; and the Executive Director of the World Food Program, Etharin Cousin.

Others who attended were Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Ebola, Dr. David Nabarro; and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury.

The partners acknowledged that the governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone which have the final decision on the overall approach and strategy for dealing with Ebola in their respective countries have put in place national response plans and have been responding to the crisis for many months.

"All partners at the meeting reaffirmed the principle of moving rapidly and in a coordinated and precise manner to defeat the disease," according to the release.

The release promised that Banbury will return to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone next week for further consultation with the leaders of those countries on the way forward and to brief them on the operational plans produced in the meetings that were concluded on Saturday.

Also participating in the meeting were senior officials from UN agencies, funds and programs as well as from international partners such as the World Bank, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the British Department for International Development.

The WHO has put the death toll of the hemorrhagic fever at 4, 500 out of 8,914 cases with the disease beginning to spread to Europe and America.

Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, has told the BBC last Thursday he was "bitterly disappointed" with the international community's response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

"I think the international community could have offered and organized ourselves in a much better way to offer the assistance, we didn't need to take months to do what we are doing today," he said.