According to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the effect the Ebola outbreak has had in poor West African countries is a reflection of the dangers of global inequality.

On Wednesday, Kim discussed the virus outbreak in a speech at Howard University in Washington, EFE reports.

"The knowledge and infrastructure to treat the sick and contain the [Ebola] virus exists in high and middle income counties. However, over many years, we have failed to make these things accessible to low-income people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone," Kim said.

Kim was referring to the three countries with the highest numbers of Ebola deaths. According to Reuters, at least 3,000 people have died from the virus in the area.

"So now, thousands of people in these countries are dying because, in the lottery of birth, they were born in the wrong place," Kim said.

Although the Ebola outbreak is a bigger problem in developing countries, Kim warns that it can soon affect more developed lands as well.

"If we do not stop Ebola now, the infection will continue to spread to other countries and even continents," he said, according to EFE. "This pandemic shows the deadly cost of unequal access to basic services and the consequences of our failure to fix this problem."

Kim is a physician and has spent time working on treating infectious diseases like HIV and tuberculosis in Third World countries.

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates cited by Reuters, there are 6,000 people infected with Ebola today, and that number could reach as much as 1.4 million by the end of January.

"It has been painful to see us replay old failures from previous epidemics," Kim said. "Concerned citizens need to demand immediate deployments of capital and human resources to the affected countries."

The World Bank plans on donating $400 million to help contain and treat Ebola.

According to EFE, the World Bank hopes to rid the world of extreme poverty by 2030.

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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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