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 Washington is sending some 3,000 soldiers to the region to build
treatment centers and train local medics. Around half will be based
in Liberia, with the rest providing logistical support outside the
country.
"This is about urgency and speed. So what you're going to see here
pretty soon is forces flown here," Major General Darryl Williams
told journalists in the capital, Monrovia.
"I have 175 soldiers and I have another 30 that are in other
countries that are beginning to set up the logistics hub to fly
forces in here," he said.
Williams said the U.S. mission was planning to build and supply 17
Ebola treatment units across the country but added that Liberian
authorities would still be leading the effort.
"The (Armed Forces of Liberia) has a great capability. They are
already out there ... and helping us, because they have this
knowledge of the local area. So we are not doing anything by
ourselves," he said.
At least 3,091 people have died from Ebola since the West African
outbreak was first identified in Guinea six months ago.
Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as
Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other heavily affected countries.
The epidemic has overwhelmed regional health sectors still
struggling to rebuild after years of civil war and turmoil. The
disease has infected 375 healthcare workers across the region,
killing 211 of them.
Bernice Dahn, Liberia's chief medical officer and deputy health
minister, put herself in quarantine over the weekend as a precaution
against Ebola after one of her assistants died from the disease.
"As destructive as the Liberian Civil War was, at least our people
knew the warring factions and the frontlines," Liberia's Foreign
Affairs Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan told the U.N. General
Assembly on Monday.
"With Ebola, the enemy is more insidious and there are no clear-cut
frontlines because someone's child, someone's husband, someone's
workmate could actually be the enemy and the frontline at the same
time," he said.
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The U.S. embassy in Morovia said on Monday that work to build a
25-bed unit to treat infected health workers, international and
Liberian, had begun in Margibi Country in central Liberia.
Construction is due to be completed in a few weeks.
"It is intended to provide a high standard of care, so that when
they put themselves at risk they have someplace they can go to be
treated," said Deborah Malac, U.S. ambassador to Liberia. "We will
be sending approximately 65 medical personnel to staff that
hospital."
After a slow initial response, foreign governments and international
organizations are now pouring funds, supplies and personnel into
West Africa.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday called on more nations to
help fight the outbreak, saying hundreds of thousands of lives were
at stake.
Britain, France, China and Cuba have all pledged military and
civilian personnel alongside cash and medical supplies.
(Writing by Joe Bavier; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at
the United Nations; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Bernard Orr)
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