Obama to announce Ebola force of 3,000 US military personnel Contingent being sent to west Africa will train health workers, build treatment centres and deliver resources to tackle epidemic

he Obama administration is ramping up its response to west Africa’s Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 US military personnel to the afflicted region to supply medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local healthcare systems and to boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.
Barack Obama is to announce the stepped-up effort on Tuesday during a visit to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta amid alarm that the outbreak could spread and the deadly virus could mutate into a more easily transmitted disease.
There have been appeals from the region and from aid organisations for a heightened US role in dealing with the outbreak, blamed for more than 2,200 deaths.
Administration officials said on Monday that the new initiatives aimed to train as many as 500 healthcare workers a week; erect 17 healthcare facilities in the region of 100 beds each; set up a joint command headquartered in Monrovia, Liberia, to co-ordinate between US and international relief efforts; provide home healthcare kits to hundreds of thousands of households, including 50,000 that the US Agency for International Development will deliver to Liberia this week; and carry out a home and community-based campaign to train local populations on how to handle exposed patients.

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