America to deploy 3‚000 troops in West Africa to tackle spread of Ebola

America announced Tuesday that it would send 3‚000 troops to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa‚ as health officials warned that $1?billion in aid spending was needed to bring the virus’s spread under control.

Following criticism by aid agencies that the international response has been “lethally inadequate“‚ Washington said it would dispatch the soldiers to Liberia‚ the worst affected of the countries hit by Ebola.

The mission‚ led by a US general‚ is the biggest US deployment to Africa since the ill-fated humanitarian mission to Somalia in 1993. It will help provide logistical support to a country whose health service has effectively been destroyed by the outbreak‚ with hundreds of doctors and health workers infected.

One of the mission’s priorities will be building 17 100-bed health-care facilities; another will be training 500 new health workers a week to help deal with infected patients.

“The goal here is to search American expertise‚ including our military‚ logistics and command and control expertise‚ to try to control this outbreak at its source in West Africa‚” Lisa Monaco‚ Barack Obama’s White House counter-terrorism adviser‚ said‚ ahead of an expected announcement by the president.

The United Nations has warned that up to 20‚000 people across West Africa could be infected by Ebola by the end of the year‚ with some aid agencies predicting the true figure could be twice that.

Aid agencies have warned that the scale of the outbreak in Liberia is threatening the stability of the country‚ which was formed by freed American slaves in the 19th century and wrecked by civil war between 1989 and 2003.

Medecins Sans Frontieres‚ the main agency operating specialist Ebola treatment clinics in Liberia‚ said that up to 30 patients per day are being turned away due to lack of beds at its new facility in the capital‚ Monrovia‚ leaving them free to infect other people.

Many Liberian hospitals have closed because of the number of health workers infected‚ leaving the country’s four million people with no emergency medical help. Anger among Liberians at the lack of response has led to health workers being attacked by mobs. In a report released yesterday‚ the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that $987.8?million was needed to contain the outbreak‚ which has claimed 2‚461 lives. The report added that $23.8?million was needed simply to buy body bags and pay the burial teams who collect victims’ bodies‚ which remain highly infectious after death. “This health crisis we’re facing is unparalleled in modern times‚” said Bruce Aylward‚ assistant director general of the WHO.

The Daily Telegraph

16-09-2014

Colin Freeman