Obama to ramp up U.S. response to Ebola with military mission

The United States is ramping up its response to West Africa’s Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the afflicted region to supply medical and logistical support, U.S. officials said. The plan will be unveiled by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Obama, who has called the epidemic a national security crisis, has faced criticism for not doing more to stem the outbreak, which the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week had killed more than 2,400 people out of 4,784 cases in West Africa.

The significant expansion that the President will detail … really represents a set of areas where the U.S. military will bring unique capabilities that we believe will improve the effectiveness of the entire global response.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta on Tuesday

Officials said Monday the new initiatives aim to train as many as 500 health care workers a week; erect 17 heath care facilities in the region; set up a joint command headquartered in Monrovia, Liberia, and; provide home health care kits to hundreds of thousands of households, including 50,000 that the U.S. Agency for International Development will deliver to Liberia this week. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans ahead of Obama’s announcement, said the cost of the effort would come from $500 million in overseas contingency operations.

ebola Americas