European leaders agreed to $1.26 billion in funding to fight Ebola in West Africa by the end of the year at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday. Over the weekend the first $254 million was put at the disposal of international efforts, including almost $30.5 million toward the development of a vaccine. ‘In the case of the Ebola disease, the international community, all of us, underestimated the danger and the extent of the threat,’ said   commissioner-elect for humanitarian aid and crisis management, Christos Stylianides. Stylianides is the EU’s new Ebola response coordinator, a decision that also came out of last Friday’s meeting. As for how the money allocated by EU is being spent, ‘we have sent medical and humanitarian experts to the affected countries and deployed mobile laboratories,’ he said. ‘We are getting vital supplies shipped to the region.’