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U.S. to send 3,000 military personnel to fight Ebola in West Africa

16 September 2014 20:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The United States will send 3, 000 military personnel to combat the Ebola virus in West Africa, the White House said Tuesday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

President Barack Obama is expected to formally announce the U. S. response to the Ebola epidemic later Tuesday during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.

"The United States will leverage the unique capabilities of the U.S. military and broader uniformed services to help bring the epidemic under control," the White House said in a statement. " These efforts will entail command and control, logistics expertise, training, and engineering support."

According to the statement, the new initiatives also include setting up a joint command headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia, to coordinate between U.S. and international relief efforts; training up to 500 health care providers per week; and building additional Ebola treatment units in affected areas.

The U.S. has spent more than 100 million U.S. dollars to address this challenge and the U.S. Agency for International Development plans to provide another 75 million dollars to increase the number of Ebola treatment units, buy more personal protective equipment, airlift additional medical and emergency supplies, and support other Ebola response activities, the statement said.

"We believe these efforts taken in total along with significant efforts made to expand the international investment ... as part of the comprehensive response will turn the tide from the high- transmission epidemic," a statement from the U.S. Department of Defense quoted a senior administration official as saying.

The Obama administration has also asked Congress for an additional 88 million dollars to fight Ebola, including 30 million dollars to send additional response workers from the U.S. CDC as well as lab supplies and equipment and 58 million dollars to support the development and manufacturing of Ebola therapeutic and vaccine candidates, the White House said.

The U.S. response came the same day a 59-member Chinese laboratory team, including epidemiologists, clinicians and nurses, departed for Sierra Leone, bringing the total number of Chinese medical experts in West Africa to 174.

"The most urgent immediate need in the Ebola response is for more medical staff," Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement.

"The newly announced team will join 115 Chinese medical staff on the ground in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone virtually since the beginning. This is a huge boost, morally and operationally."

The WHO Ebola response roadmap, released in August, highlighted the need for a massively scaled response to support affected countries.

According to the WHO, the Ebola outbreak, the worst in the nearly 40-year history of this disease, has killed more than 2,400 people in West Africa.