The US announced Tuesday that they will send 3000 troops to assist in the control of the Ebola outbreak that has ravaged West Africa and killed 2700 people there. The troops will be sent to Liberia, the hot zone of the outbreak and the place where the outbreak has spread the fastest.
In recent remarks, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief, Dr. Margaret Chan has said that it was quite possible that without assistance, there could be as many as 200 000 Ebola cases in West Africa alone. Beds are not available in Liberia and things have become so bad, that health officials are asking others to use plastic bags to keep the disease at bay since there is no more protective gear, according to reports in Reuters News.
However, reports suggest that in a more direct response, The U.S. Agency for International Development will also assist with the distribution of protective kits and gear and sanitizers for 400 000 vulnerable households in Liberia and will also include medical supplies.
The plan will “ensure that the entire international response effort is more effective and helps to … turn the tide in this crisis,” said a senior administration official. “The significant expansion that the president will detail … really represents … areas where the U.S. military will bring unique capabilities that we believe will improve the effectiveness of the entire global response,” he continued.
President Barack Obama made his remarks regarding the deployment of troops to the illness-torn region (as opposed to medical professionals) to assist in building 17 treatment centres, train health care workers and establish a military centre. He also visited the CDC for an update on Ebola as well as the rare respiratory illness that has sickened hundreds in the Midwest and spread to the North-East United States with many children ending up in the Intensive Care Unit.
“The goal here is to search American expertise, including our military, logistics and command and control expertise, to try and control this outbreak at its source in West Africa,” said Lisa Monaco, Obama’s White House counter-terrorism adviser.
“Highly infectious people are forced to return home”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it needs up to 600 health care workers and 10 000 beds as a matter of urgency. Most recently, Cuba has agreed to send 165 trained medical professionals. China has also agreed to send a mobile lab with 59 staffers to expedite testing for Ebola. China has already posted 115 staff who run a Chinese-financed hospital in Liberia.
“We are honestly at a loss as to how a single, private NGO is providing the bulk of isolation units and beds,” MSF’s international president, Joanne Liu, said in a speech to the United Nations in Geneva addressing the fact that Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontiers) was leading the fight against Ebola.. According to reports, the charity was now turning away sick people for lack of beds and other equipment in Monrovia, Liberia.
“Highly infectious people are forced to return home, only to infect others and continue the spread of this deadly virus. All for a lack of international response,” she said.
Obama, said that Ebola represents a “national security crisis” and has faced scathing criticism for not doing more to stem the spread of Ebola which WHO said has killed 2700 people including half of all health care professionals working there.
To fast-track the strategy, the US will build the treatment centres in less than six months while also training 500 health care workers a week for six months or however long it takes to look after sick patients, officials said.
There is no immediate plan to send health care workers to West Africa. Two health care workers were sickened with Ebola while in West Africa and recovered in Atlanta while being treated with the experimental drug ZMapp.
The Obama administration has requested an additional $88 million from Congress to fight Ebola, including $58 million to speed production of ZMapp, Biopharmaceutical Inc’s experimental antiviral drug ZMapp and two Ebola vaccines according to reports.
The US Department of Defense is also hoping to redeploy $500 million dollars from 2014 to cover the cost of a humanitarian mission to West Africa.
