Obama to detail plans on Ebola offensive in West Africa

U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to detail on Tuesday a plan to boost his country’s involvement in mitigating the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, reported the Wall Street Journal. The plan would involve a greater involvement of the U.S. military in tackling the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the proposal. Among the possible moves: sending additional portable hospitals, doctors and health-care experts, providing medical supplies and conducting training for health workers in Liberia and other countries.

There’s a lot that we’ve been putting toward this, but it is not sufficient. So the president has directed a more scaled-up response and that’s what you’re going to hear more about on Tuesday.

Lisa Monaco, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser

The U.S. government has already committed around $100 million to tackle the outbreak, and Obama could ask Congress for an additional $88 million to fund his proposal, the WSJ reported. The Ebola outbreak has now killed more than 2,400 people, mostly in Liberia, neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone, as poorly resourced West African healthcare systems have been overrun. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the epidemic is spreading exponentially in Liberia, where more than half of the deaths have been recorded.

World