250 Nigerian health workers to combat Ebola

Nigerian health care workers are heading to West Africa to fight Ebola as part of the African Union's promise to send 1,000 medical workers to the region by the end of the year.

The African Union held a ceremony Wednesday to send off the 250 Nigerians trained by the continental bloc to treat Ebola. While hundreds of health care workers have been promised by a handful of AU countries, they have been slow to deploy.

So far, 87 African health care workers have gone to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the most-affected countries.

Ebola has infected more than 17,000 people, killing about 6,000 of them. While foreign aid has poured in to build treatment centers and provide supplies, there remains a severe shortage of trained medical workers to treat patients.