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 Washington has led the international drive to stop the spread of the
disease that has killed nearly 5,000 people, sending thousands of
troops and committing about $1 billion, but Beijing has faced
criticism for not doing enough.
The PLA squad, which has experience from a 2002 outbreak of Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), will build a 100-bed treatment
center in Liberia, the first such facility in the three countries
most impacted by Ebola to be constructed and run by a foreign
country, said Lin Songtian, director general of the ministry's
Department of African Affairs.
The center will be open for operation in a month's time, he told a
briefing in Beijing. China will also dispatch 480 PLA medical staff
to treat Ebola patients, he said.
It's the first time China has deployed a whole unit of epidemic
prevention forces and military medical staff abroad, Lin said.
China is Africa's biggest trade partner, tapping the continent's
rich vein of resources to fuel its own economic growth over the past
couple of decades. Some critics have rounded on Beijing for not
helping more in Africa's hour of need.
China has so far donated 750 million yuan ($123 million) to 13
African countries and international organizations to combat Ebola,
according to the government.
"China's assistance will not stop until the Ebola epidemic is
eradicated in West Africa," Lin said.
The White House this week responded to criticism that as the global
superpower it was not doing enough by taking a veiled swipe at the
contributions of Russia and China.
"When we have a situation like this on the global scene, people
aren't wondering what the Chinese are doing to respond to it. People
aren't picking up the phone and wondering if Vladimir Putin is going
to commit Russian resources to this effort," White House Press
Secretary Josh Earnest told a media briefing.
"People want to know what the United States of America is doing
about it."
FOREIGN AID UNDER SPOTLIGHT
China said in July that more than half its foreign aid of over $14
billion went to Africa. In comparison, the United States spent about
$46 billion in fiscal 2015 on foreign aid programs.
China has also dispatched hundreds of aid workers to Africa to
combat Ebola including health experts and medical staff.
Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group Ltd., a Chinese drug maker with
military ties, has sent several thousand doses of an experimental
Ebola drug to Africa and is planning clinical trials there.
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Lin said several thousand Chinese nationals live in Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone, and about a million Chinese nationals live on the
African continent.
U.S. and Chinese troops staged their first disaster relief exercise
last November in a signal that China is increasingly eager to use
its growing military muscle for humanitarian causes as it works to
win international support.
China dispatched a state-of-the-art hospital ship to the Philippines
last year after one of the world's biggest typhoons that killed
thousands there.
The United Nations has called on foreign governments to ramp up
efforts to help the Ebola-hit states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra
Leone, requesting they send hundreds more medical personnel to the
impoverished states to help.
Foreign efforts have been complicated by public health policy issues
at home. Some U.S. states have slapped mandatory quarantines on
health workers returning from Ebola-hit states, while Australia this
week imposed a blanket ban on visas from the three affected states.
Health experts have decried the measures as draconian, and say such
policies may discourage badly needed foreign doctors and nurses from
volunteering to help.
Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread
through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person
and is not transmitted by asymptomatic people. Ebola is not
airborne.
(Reporting by Megha Rajagopalan; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
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