The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will announce a debt relief programme at G20 summit in Brisbane for three west African countries worst affected by the Ebola outbreak.

The debt relief programme is likely to be contained in a separate communique issued after dinner at the G20 by Australia, the host of the summit in Brisbane.

The United States had been pressing the IMF to offer 100m dollars in debt relief to three worst-affected countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and it is not clear whether a precise figure will be put on the amount of debt relief in the communique.

David Cameron, British prime minister, has joined the US to put Ebola crisis on the agenda of a summit that Australia had been trying to focus extensively on jobs and economic growth.

It must be noted that IMF has already agreed to provide 130m dollars of emergency financial assistance, including 48.3m dollars to Liberia, 41.4m dollars to Guinea and 39.8m dollars to Sierra Leone. IMF is also empowered to offer debt relief in such emergencies if needed.

Previously, the IMF had estimated the Ebola epidemic would be brought under control by the first quarter of 2015, but now believed this was likely to be the second half of the year, increasing the cost to the nations affected.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 5,000 people have died from the Ebola disease, and though the daily number of new cases is falling, the virus is still appearing in new areas in the region.

Cameron has been pressing G20 members that have given little to help to the crisis either in donations or gifts to reconsider their priorities.

The possibility of a future pandemic relief fund, which has been proposed by the World Bank, might be mentioned in the final G20 communique. Such a fund would ensure that a response to a future health crisis is not as slow as the response to Ebola.