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 The U.S. response to the crisis, to be formally unveiled later by
President Barack Obama, includes plans to build 17 treatment
centers, train thousands of healthcare workers and establish a
military control center for coordination, U.S. officials told
reporters.
The World Health Organization has said it needs foreign medical
teams with 500-600 experts as well as at least 10,000 local health
workers, numbers that may rise if the number of cases increases, as
it is widely expected to.
So far Cuba and China have said they will send medical staff to
Sierra Leone. Cuba will deploy 165 people in October while China is
sending a mobile laboratory with 59 staff to speed up testing for
the disease. It already has 115 staff and a Chinese-funded hospital
there.
But Liberia is where the disease appears to be running amok. The WHO
has not issued any estimate of cases or deaths in the country since
Sept 5 and its Director-General Margaret Chan has said there is not
a single bed available for Ebola patients there.
Liberia, a nation founded by descendants of freed American slaves,
appealed for U.S. help last week.
A U.N. official in the country said on Friday that her colleagues
had resorted to telling locals to use plastic bags to fend off the
killer virus, for want of any other protective equipment.
Medecins Sans Frontieres, the charity that has been leading the
fight against Ebola, said it was overwhelmed and repeated its call
for an immediate and massive deployment.
"We are honestly at a loss as to how a single, private NGO is
providing the bulk of isolation units and beds," MSF's international
president Joanne Liu said in a speech to the United Nations in
Geneva, adding that the charity was having to turn away sick people
in Monrovia.
"Highly infectious people are forced to return home, only to infect
others and continue the spread of this deadly virus. All for a lack
of international response," she said.
Obama, who has called the epidemic a national security crisis, has
faced criticism for not doing more to stem the outbreak, which the
WHO said last week had killed more than 2,400 people out of 4,784
cases in West Africa.
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"MORE EFFECTIVE"
The president will visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in
Atlanta on Tuesday to show his commitment. The stepped-up effort he
will announce is to include 3,000 military forces and a joint forces
command center in Monrovia, capital of Liberia, to coordinate
efforts with the U.S. government and other international partners.
The plan will "ensure that the entire international response effort
is more effective and helps to ... turn the tide in this crisis," a
senior administration official told reporters on Monday, ahead of
the president's trip.
"The significant expansion that the president will detail ... really
represents ... areas where the U.S. military will bring unique
capabilities that we believe will improve the effectiveness of the
entire global response," he said.
The treatment centers will have 100 beds each and be built as soon
as possible, another official said.
The U.S. plan also focuses on training. A site will be established
where military medical personnel will teach some 500 healthcare
workers per week for six months or more how to provide care to Ebola
patients, officials said.
Obama's administration has requested an additional $88 million from
Congress to fight Ebola, including $58 million to speed production
of the ZMapp experimental antiviral drug and two Ebola vaccine
candidates.
Officials said the Department of Defense had requested to reallocate
$500 million in funds from fiscal 2014 to help cover the costs of
the humanitarian mission.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will also
support a program to distribute protection kits with sanitizers and
medical supplies to 400,000 vulnerable households in Liberia.
(Editing by Sophie Walker)
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