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 The Pentagon said the $22 million hospital was being provided at
the request of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which
is coordinating the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak first
identified in Guinea in March.
The announcement on Monday came after President Barack Obama said on
Sunday that the United States needed to do more to help control the
outbreak to stop it from becoming a global crisis that might
eventually threaten Americans.
"If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads not just through
Africa but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that
the virus mutates, it becomes more easily transmittable," Obama said
in an interview. "And then it could be a serious danger to the
United States."
He told NBC's "Meet the Press" program it was important to "get U.S.
military assets just to set up, for example, isolation units and
equipment there, to provide security for public health workers
surging from around the world."
 Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said the military's
role would be to set up the hospital and then hand it over to the
Liberian government to operate. He said there was no plan for U.S.
military involvement in providing medical treatment.
"The intent of this piece of equipment is to provide a facility that
healthcare workers in the affected region can use for themselves if
they become ill or injured," Warren said.
"No U.S. personnel right now will be providing patient care. We are
deploying the hospital facility, setting it up, stockpiling it.
We'll turn it over to the government of Liberia and then the DoD
(Defense Department) personnel will depart," he said.
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Warren said the hospital was not yet en route but was expected to be
sent soon. U.S. military planners were in the process of working out
what equipment was needed for the hospital and identifying where the
gear could be obtained.
"It is a top priority. I would expect it to get there rapidly,"
Warren said.
Since it was identified in Guinea in March, the Ebola outbreak has
spread across much of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Cases have also been
registered in Nigeria and Senegal. There are no approved Ebola
vaccines or treatments.
In Liberia, the disease has killed 1,089 people among 1,871 cases,
the highest national toll so far, according to the World Health
Organization.
(Editing by Tom Brown)
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