Ebola news 9/16

[Buster's Uncle]

UN says $1.0 billion needed to fight Ebola
AFP
23 minutes ago



Volunteers raise awareness of the symptoms of Ebola at a school in Abidjan, on September 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sia Kambou)



Geneva (AFP) - Nearly $1.0 billion is needed to fight the Ebola outbreak raging in west Africa, the United Nations said Tuesday, more than doubling the estimate it made less than a month ago.

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos told reporters in Geneva there was a "huge funding challenge", warning that "if not dealt with effectively now, Ebola could become a major humanitarian crisis in countries currently affected."

The response to the crisis will require $987.8 million (763 million euros), with about half needed for the worst-hit country, Liberia, the UN said in its response plan.

It stressed there were some 22 million people living in the three countries most affected by the outbreak.

The UN announcement came as the death toll from the worst-ever Ebola epidemic rose to 2,461, out of 4,985 cases in the three west African countries that have borne the brunt of the disease, according to fresh figures from the World Health Organization.

The UN document estimates that some 20,000 people could be infected with Ebola by the end of the year, with Guinea accounting for 16 percent of infections, Sierra Leone 34 percent and Liberia a full 40 percent.



World Health Organization emergency chief Bruce Aylward holds a report on the Ebola virus during a press conference on September 16, 2014 at the UN offices in Geneva (AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini)


If the international community and affected countries respond swiftly and energetically, transmission should begin to slow by the end of the year and end by mid-2015, the document said.

"This health crisis we face is unparallelled in modern times," WHO's emergency chief Bruce Aylward said at a joint press conference.

"We don't know where the numbers are going," he said, pointing out that two weeks ago when WHO said it needed the capacity to manage 20,000 cases, "that seemed like a lot."

"That does not seem like a lot today," Aylward said.

While it was difficult to estimate accurately how many people might become infected and die going forward, Aylward said WHO believed "the numbers can be kept in the tens of thousands, but that is going to require a much faster escalation of the response if we're to beat the escalation of the virus."


http://news.yahoo.com/un-says-1-0-billion-needed-fight-ebola-005314046.html

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Ebola: US sends 3,000 troops to W.Africa to 'turn tide'
AFP
By Stephen Collinson  30 minutes ago



Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama will try to "turn the tide" on the Ebola epidemic Tuesday by ordering 3,000 US military personnel to west Africa to curtail its spread as China also dispatched more experts to the region.

The White House said Obama will travel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta -- where US Ebola victims were treated -- to make the announcement, meant to spur a global effort to tackle the outbreak that has already killed 2,400 people.

It comes as alarm grows that the worst-ever Ebola epidemic which spread through Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea before reaching Nigeria, is out of control. A separate strain of the disease has appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Most of the US effort, which will draw heavily on its military medical corps, will be concentrated in impoverished Liberia -- the worst hit nation -- with plans to build 17 Ebola treatment centres with 100 beds in each.

China is also sending more medics to neighbouring Sierra Leone to help boost laboratory testing for the virus, raising the total number of Chinese medical experts there to 174, the UN said Tuesday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday it was reconvening its emergency committee in Geneva which declared the outbreak an international health emergency in August, to consider further measures to limit its spread.

Obama will announce that US Africa Command will set up a headquarters in the Liberian capital Monrovia to act as a command and control centre for US military and international relief programmes.


- 500 health workers a week -

But the main element of the push is a six-month training and hygiene drive to tackle the disease head-on.

US advisors will train up to 500 Liberian health care providers per week in how to safely handle and treat victims and their families in a bid to shore up the country's overwhelmed health infrastructure.

The intervention will involve an estimated 3,000 US military personnel, senior officials said, many working at a staging base for transit of equipment and personnel.

Washington will also send 65 experts from the public health service corps to Liberia to manage and staff a previously announced US military hospital to care for health workers who become sick with Ebola.

Ebola prevention kits, including disinfectant and advice, will also be supplied to 400,000 of the most vulnerable families in Liberia.

"What is clear is in order to combat and contain the outbreak at its source, we need to partner and lead an international response," said one senior US official, on condition of anonymity.

China said it is sending a mobile laboratory team to Sierra Leone, where more than 500 people have died so far from Ebola. The 59-person team from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control will include epidemiologists, clinicians and nurses, the WHO said.

"The newly announced team will join 115 Chinese medical staff on the ground in Sierra Leone virtually since the beginning," the agency's chief Margaret Chan said, hailing the new commitment as "a huge boost, morally and operationally".


- 'No threat to US' -

The Obama administration believes its latest emergency action could help "turn the tide" and slow the spread of the epidemic.

The White House however still believes that there is no realistic threat to the United States from Ebola. It believes that any cases that do materialise on the US soil would be quickly isolated.

The US has so far spent $100 million on fighting the epidemic and the US Agency for International Development plans to allocate another $75 million to increase the number of Ebola treatment units and buy protective gear for health providers.

In addition, the administration has asked Congress for a further $88 million. The money is contained in a short term bill to fund the government until mid-December which could pass Congress this week.

More than 100 workers from Centers for Disease Control are already at work in west Africa, and many more staff are coordinating their work at the agency's Atlanta headquarters.

It was unclear how many of the new US personnel would be deployed in direct contact with patients. The number however appears limited.

Obama first said last week that he was going to use a major military deployment to step up US efforts to fight the epidemic.

His remarks, and a recent YouTube message from the president offering guidance to the people of west Africa on halting infections, highlight increasing White House concern about the implications of the rapid spread of the disease.


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-announce-major-ebola-effort-043320604.html

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China ups its medics in Ebola-hit Sierra Leone to 174
AFP
4 hours ago



Sierra Leone government workers are disinfected after loading the bodies of Ebola victims onto a truck at a clinic in Kailahun, on August 14, 2014 (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)



Geneva (AFP) - China will send more medics to Ebola-hit Sierra Leone to help boost laboratory testing for the virus, raising the total number of Chinese medical experts there to 174, the UN said Tuesday.

"The most urgent immediate need in the Ebola response is for more medical staff," World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan said in a statement, hailing the Chinese commitment.

China has said it will dispatch a mobile laboratory team to Sierra Leone, where more than 500 people have died so far from Ebola.

It will send a 59-person team from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control, including epidemiologists, clinicians and nurses, WHO said.

"The newly announced team will join 115 Chinese medical staff on the ground in Sierra Leone virtually since the beginning," Chan said, stressing that the new commitment was "a huge boost, morally and operationally."

The Chinese contribution comes in response to WHO's urgent appeal to countries around the globe to step up their assistance to help bring the raging epidemic under control.



Kenema is among the districts hardest hit by Ebola in Sierra Leone (AFP Photo/Carl de Souza)


The worst-ever Ebola contagion has already killed more than 2,400 people in west Africa since it erupted earlier this year.

The announcement of China's contribution comes as US President Barack Obama was set Tuesday to announce US efforts to "turn the tide" in the Ebola epidemic.

Washington plans to order 3,000 US military personnel to west Africa, while US advisors will train up to 500 health care providers per week in Liberia -- the country hardest-hit by the epidemic.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) meanwhile announced late Monday that it had opened its first Ebola treatment centre in Kenema, one of the districts of Sierra Leone worst affected by the deadly outbreak.

The centre, which is staffed with 19 international workers and 80 national employees, will have room for 60 patients, IFRC said.

The first patients, including an 11-year-old girl from Freetown, were already being treated there, it added.

The tropical Ebola virus can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

No licenced vaccine or treatment exists but health experts are looking at fast-tracking two potential vaccines and eight treatments, including the drug ZMapp.


http://news.yahoo.com/china-ups-medics-ebola-hit-sierra-leone-174-094755727.html

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Liberia must wait weeks or months for new Ebola centers: WHO
Reuters
1 hour ago



GENEVA (Reuters) - The Ebola response in Liberia, the country worst hit by the outbreak, will focus on community-level care units since new treatment centers are unlikely to be ready for weeks or months, World Health Organization Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said on Tuesday.

"The absolute first priority is to establish enough capacity to rapidly isolate the cases so that they are not infecting others. We need Ebola treatment centers to do that, very very quickly, but they take time to build, as you've seen," he said.

"It takes weeks, if not months, to get these facilities up and running. We have firm commitments for more than 500 additional beds in Liberia and we think we will hear announcements that will take that even further over the coming weeks."

The WHO still has a goal to "bend the curve" in total Ebola case numbers across West Africa within three months, but some areas may be free of the disease sooner, he said.

"You definitely want to get Nigeria and Senegal obviously done quickly," Aylward said. "In some capitals - Freetown, Conakry - we should be able to get those free in the near term. Guinea should be able to get most of the country free in the very near term as well."

In Sierra Leone and Liberia the disease is more entrenched over bigger geographic areas and the Liberian capital Monrovia was a "particular challenge", he said.

The number of cases has shrunk to one single confirmed Ebola patient in Senegal, after two suspected cases were ruled out, and remained steady at 21 cases in Nigeria, he said.

"I cannot say Senegal is safe. Remember, if a country has Ebola, the incubation period is about 21 days. I like to see at least two incubation periods without any cases to be absolutely sure. So that would take us way out into October. Never declare victory over this virus."

Guinea, where the outbreak originated last December, has had 936 cases, Sierra Leone 1,602 and Liberia 2,407, he said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by Stephanie Nebehay)


http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-must-wait-weeks-months-ebola-centers-123629501.html

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UN: Nearly $1 billion needed now to stop Ebola
Associated Press
By JOHN HEILPRIN and KRISTA LARSON  26 minutes ago



A sign showing directions to the Lumley Government Hospital, where medical doctor Olivet Buck worked before contracting the Ebola virus and passing away on Saturday, near the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. Sierra Leone accused the World Health Organization on Monday of being “sluggish” in facilitating an evacuation of a doctor who died from Ebola before she could be sent out of the country for medical care. Dr. Olivet Buck died Saturday, hours after the U.N. health agency said it could not help evacuate her to Germany. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)



GENEVA (AP) — The number of Ebola cases in West Africa could start doubling every three weeks and it could end up costing nearly $1 billion to contain the crisis, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday.

Even as President Barack Obama was expected to announce the deployment of 3,000 American troops to help provide aid in the region, Doctors Without Borders told the U.N. health agency that the global response to Ebola was falling far short of what is needed.

"The response to Ebola continues to fall dangerously behind," Joanne Liu, president of the medical charity, told a meeting at the United Nations in Geneva. "The window of opportunity to contain this outbreak is closing. We need more countries to stand up, we need greater deployment, and we need it now."

In a report released Tuesday, WHO said some $987.8 million is needed for everything from paying health workers and buying supplies to tracing people who have been exposed to the virus, which is spread by contact with bodily fluids like blood, urine or diarrhea. Some $23.8 million alone is needed to pay burial teams and buy body bags, since the bodies of Ebola victims are highly infectious and workers must wear protection suits.

Nearly 5,000 people have been sickened by Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal since it was first recognized in March. WHO says it anticipates that figure could rise to more than 20,000. At least 2,400 people have died, with Liberia bearing the brunt of the fatalities.

Recent weeks have seen a flurry of promises of aid.



A area that was used to treat Ebola virus patients forming part of the Lumley Government Hospital, where medical doctor Olivet Buck worked before contracting the Ebola virus and passing away on Saturday near the city of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. Sierra Leone accused the World Health Organization on Monday of being “sluggish” in facilitating an evacuation of a doctor who died from Ebola before she could be sent out of the country for medical care. Dr. Olivet Buck died Saturday, hours after the U.N. health agency said it could not help evacuate her to Germany. (AP Photo/ Michael Duff)


In addition to the U.S. troops, the U.N. health agency said China has promised to send a 59-person mobile laboratory team to Sierra Leone that includes lab experts, epidemiologists, doctors and nurses. Britain is also planning to build and operate an Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone, and Cuba has promised to send the country more than 160 health workers.

Still, hospitals and clinics in West Africa are now turning the sick away because they don't have enough space to treat everyone — a sure-fire way to increase the spread of the disease, which in this outbreak is killing about half of those it infects.

The United States, in particular, drew criticism last week when it promised to set up a 25-bed field hospital in Liberia that would only serve foreign health workers. Many thought the contribution was discriminatory and paltry, given that experts were saying Liberia needed at least 500 more treatment beds.

___

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Maria Cheng in London, Sarah DiLorenzo in Dakar, Senegal, and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/china-send-ebola-lab-team-sierra-leone-093658701.html

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Ebola cases may be kept within tens of thousands, WHO says
Reuters
1 hour ago


GENEVA (Reuters) - The unprecedented Ebola outbreak in West Africa requires a $1 billion response to keep its spread within the "tens of thousands" of cases, United Nations officials said on Tuesday.

The virus has killed 2,461 people, half of the 4,985 infected by the virus, and the toll has doubled in the last month, World Health Organization Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said.

"Quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, this health crisis we're facing is unparalleled in modern times," Aylward told a news conference in Geneva. "We don't know where the numbers are going on this."

He said the WHO's previous forecast that the number of cases could reach 20,000 no longer seemed a lot, but the number could be kept within the tens of thousands with "a much faster reponse".

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will launch a "global response coalition" in New York on Thursday, said Dr. David Nabarro, senior U.N. coordinator for Ebola.

"The amount for which we requested was about $100 million a month ago and now it is $1 billion, so our ask has gone up 10 times in a month," Nabarro told reporters.

"Because of the way the outbreak is advancing, the level of surge we need to do is unprecedented, it is massive," he said.

The United States announced on Tuesday that it would send 3,000 troops to help tackle the Ebola outbreak as part of a ramped-up response including a major deployment in Liberia, the country where the epidemic is spiraling fastest out of control.

(Reporting by Tom Miles and Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Ralph Boulton)


http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-cases-may-kept-within-tens-thousands-says-112742633.html

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President Obama to Unveil Expanded Ebola Response
ABC
By MARY BRUCE and DEAN SCHABNER — Sep 16, 2014, 12:03 AM ET



President Obama plans to unveil today an expanded U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the worst outbreak of the disease in history.

Obama, who has called the outbreak a national security priority, will outline new steps to address the crisis during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

According to senior administration officials, the ramped up military effort centers on command and control, logistics, training and engineering support.

With the new measures the United States is significantly ramping up its response, and the next steps will focus on command and control, logistics, training and engineering support.


They include:

Creating a joint force command headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia. By end of the week, the U.S. will have general officer in place to lead the effort, known as "Operation United Assistance."

Providing engineers to build treatment units. Up to 17 separate facilities with 100 beds each.

Training support for health care workers, up to 500 health care workers per week, for as long as needed (although budgeting plans for a six-month period). Training will come from U.S. military medical personnel. The administration hopes to have force on the ground in a couple of weeks. After this scaling up is done, the expectation is for there to be up to 3,000 Defense Department personnel on the ground in support of the joint force command.

Working to boost a messaging campaign to train households on how to protect themselves and help family members that may present symptoms. To pay for the mission, the administration is asking for $88 million be added to the CR; $175 million has already been dedicated. The Defense Department has requested the reprogramming of $500 million in unobligated funds to be put towards the Ebola response.

As of Sept. 7, there were 4,366 probable, confirmed and suspected cases in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, with 2,218 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The countries affected are Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.


http://abcnews.go.com/Health/obama-unveil-expanded-ebola-response/story?id=25526100

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Obama to send 3,000 troops to tackle Ebola
Reuters
By Tom Miles  4 hours ago



Health workers remove the body of Prince Nyentee, a 29-year-old man whom local residents said died of Ebola virus in Monrovia September 11, 2014. REUTERS/James Giahyue



WASHINGTON/GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States announced on Tuesday that it would send 3,000 troops to help tackle the Ebola outbreak as part of a ramped-up response including a major deployment in Liberia, the country where the epidemic is spiralling fastest out of control.

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.


"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)


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-send-3-000-troops-tackle-ebola-112728821.html

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Could Ebola Become Airborne?
LiveScience.com
By Rachael Rettner, Senior Writer  10 minutes ago



A microscopic view of the Ebola virus.



The Ebola virus is currently causing a devastating and unprecedented outbreak in West Africa, but could the virus create a doomsday scenario by turning airborne?

Although one infectious-disease expert has voiced concern that the Ebola virus could gain the ability to spread through the air, others say this scenario is extremely unlikely. What's more, an "airborne Ebola" might actually be a less dangerous virus than the strain involved in the current outbreak, experts said.

Last week, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, published an op-ed in The New York Times in which he argued that the ability of Ebola to become airborne is a real risk that virologists don't like to talk about publicly.

Currently, Ebola can be spread only through contact with bodily fluids, but each new human infection with Ebola gives the virus a chance to mutate, Osterholm said. "If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola," Osterholm wrote. "Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe."

Other experts disagreed. Although it's theoretically possible that Ebola could become airborne, "it's pretty unlikely," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Pittsburgh.

"Airborne transmission may be what we fear the most, but evolutionarily speaking, it may not be the best path for the virus to take," Adalja said.

The Ebola virus does mutate, or change its genetic material,, fairly frequently, but this does not necessarily mean it can become airborne, Adalja said. The HIV virus has a high rate of mutation as well, but it has not acquired the ability to spread through the air, despite infecting magnitudes more people than the Ebola virus has, Adalja said. In fact, none of the 23 viruses that cause serious disease in humans have been known to mutate in a way that changed their mode of infection, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former deputy commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration, who recently wrote about the topic in Forbes.

Genetic mutations are random, and some Ebola mutations may not cause any noticeable changes at all, while others may render the virus nonfunctional, Adalja said. Only a small fraction of mutations will result in an advantage to the virus, he said.

"It's probably going to take a series of mutations that are very exact," that happen in the right order in multiple genes, for the virus to become airborne, Adalja said.

Derek Gatherer, a bioinformatics researcher at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, agreed. The ability of Ebola to become airborne "requires a conjunction of coincidental, unlikely events," Gatherer said. "This is a 'worst possible case' scenario, but there's no reason for us to think it will happen." To be airborne, a virus needs to dry quickly in the air, which Ebola does not do currently, Gatherer said.

And even if Ebola were to become airborne, that doesn't mean it would be more dangerous than its current form, Adalja said. Viral mutations can come with trade-offs — the virus may gain the ability to spread through the air, but lose the ability to infect people, or to cause serious symptoms, Adalja said.

"I wouldn't assume that if Ebola became airborne that it would be the exact same virus" that's spreading in Africa right now, Adalja said.

In addition, Gatherer said there's no evidence of any other filoviruses — viruses that belong to the same family as Ebola — spreading through the airborne route in people.

Osterholm did recall, however, a 2012 Canadian study in which pigs infected with the Ebola virus spread the disease to monkeys housed in cages in the same area, but did not have direct contact with the pigs. The monkeys showed signs of respiratory infection with the virus. This study, Osterholm wrote, "proved that Ebola Zaire, the same virus that is causing the West Africa outbreak, could be transmitted by the respiratory route from pigs to monkeys."

But contrary to Osterholm's statement, Gatherer said the study was "unable to conclusively prove that the transmission was airborne." The study researchers themselves wrote in their paper that, while the animal facility was being cleaned, droplets containing the Ebola virus could have been splashed into the monkey cages, and the monkeys may have become infected by touching the dried droplets.

Even if the Ebola virus did spread from pig to monkey through the air, "this is a rather contrived model if our primary concern is human-to-human [transmission], in which case the experiment should have been monkey-to-monkey," Gatherer said.

Still, Adalja said it's important to keep checking the Ebola virus in this outbreak, and future outbreaks, to see what mutations are occurring, and whether those mutations affect the spread of the virus.       


http://news.yahoo.com/could-ebola-become-airborne-153701091.html

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World Bank approves $105 million Ebola grant for West Africa
Reuters
By Stella Dawson  5 minutes ago



A billboard displaying a government message about Ebola, which reads: "The risk of Ebola is still there. Let us apply the protective measures together", is seen on a street in the capital Abidjan September 10, 2014. REUTERS/Luc Gnago



WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The World Bank approved a $105 million grant on Tuesday to speed up delivery of emergency supplies and provide support for healthcare workers in the three West African countries worst affected by the Ebola crisis.

The disease has swamped weak health systems, infecting hundreds of local staff in a region chronically short of doctors and nurses and in some areas is raging out of control. Getting more healthcare workers onto the frontlines is seen as critical to controlling the deadly virus.

The World Bank aid for Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone will fund hazard pay for healthcare workers in emergency treatment centers, death benefits for their families and in-country medical care for exposed health workers as part of an international effort to bolster the number of people handling the sick and dying.

The grant, approved on the same day U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to send 3,000 military troops to the region, will also pay for training programs for international staff going to the countries, and basic supplies for quarantined areas.

“The world needs to do much, much more to respond to the Ebola crisis in these three countries,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said when presenting the grant to his executive board.

The World Bank grant is part of the $200 million it had promised in August to fight the outbreak. Since then the death toll has doubled to more than 2,400 and U.N. officials now estimate containment will require $1 billion.

Tim Evans, head of the World Bank’s health group, said its financing, which will arrive in the countries by Thursday, will support basic prevention, training and disease monitoring to halt Ebola’s march into neighboring countries.

“Containing the Ebola epidemic has been hampered by the already fragile health systems in the affected countries. In turn, this is putting recent health gains in the region at serious risk,” said Evans, who is World Bank senior director for health, nutrition, and population.

Some of the World Bank money will also be used for basic food supplies and chlorine for the quarantined areas, benefiting about 395,000 people. More than one million people are facing food shortages and the situation could reach crisis proportions in coming months, the World Bank said.

(Editing by Alex Whiting)


http://news.yahoo.com/world-bank-approves-105-million-ebola-grant-west-175504626.html

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Tracing the rise of Ebola in West Africa
Associated Press
By Associated Press  1 hour ago


JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Since the Ebola outbreak first emerged in West Africa, The Associated Press has been reporting on it. A timeline compiled from AP dispatches since March shows the dreaded disease being identified in a remote part of Guinea and then spreading to another country and then two more nations with authorities being alternately alarmed or confident.

The outbreak is now out of control and the U.S. is planning to send in military personnel and equipment as part of the international effort to try and bring it under control.

March 23: Guinean officials say tests confirm that it is the Ebola virus that has killed 59 people. Health officials and Doctors Without Borders establish treatment centers.

March 28: Health officials confirm Ebola has spread from a remote forested corner of southern Guinea to the country's seaside capital.

March 30: Ebola crosses the border into Liberia, where the health minister says two patients have tested positive for the deadly virus.

April 5: A crowd angry about the Ebola outbreak that is believed to have killed 86 people across Guinea attacks a center in the country where patients are being held in isolation, prompting an international aid group to temporarily evacuate its team.

May 9: The World Health Organization says health workers have made dramatic progress in controlling the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in recent weeks, blaming it for at least 168 people in Guinea and Liberia. There are signs that the spread is slowing but it is not over yet, says a WHO official.

May 30: The first two Ebola deaths are reported in Sierra Leone.

June 12: The Sierra Leone government announces a state of emergency in the Kailahun district because of the Ebola outbreak which has claimed 17 lives in this West African nation, banning public gatherings and closing schools.

June 17: Ebola is now also in Liberia's capital, with a health official saying seven people have died there.

June 18: This appears to be the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded, says an American doctor who has responded to the outbreak. The World Health Organization attributes more than 330 deaths to Ebola.

June 20: The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa is "totally out of control," according to a senior official for Doctors Without Borders, who says the medical group is stretched to the limit in responding.

July 23: The doctor in charge of battling Sierra Leone's current Ebola outbreak has himself become ill with the deadly disease, the country's health minister confirms. He later dies.

July 25: The outbreak spreads to Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, after a Liberian man with Ebola takes a flight to Lagos and dies there.

July 27: One of Liberia's most high-profile doctors has died of Ebola, a government official says.

July 31: The death toll attributed to Ebola has risen to more than 700 people in West Africa and the disease is moving faster than efforts to control it, the head of the World Health Organization warns as presidents from the affected countries meet in Guinea's capital.

Aug. 17: Liberian officials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital's largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses.

Aug. 20: The World Health Organization says the death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is believed to be at least 1,350 people. The U.N. health agency also warned in its announcement that "countries are beginning to experience supply shortages, including fuel, food, and basic supplies."

Aug. 29: Senegalese officials announce that a university student infected with Ebola evaded health surveillance for weeks as he slipped into Senegal, carrying the deadly virus to a fifth West African nation. With mass quarantines, border closures and flight bans failing to contain the outbreak, public health officials intensified efforts to identify and contain the sick.

Sept. 13: Sierra Leone loses a fourth doctor to Ebola, a huge setback to the impoverished country that is battling the virulent disease amid a shortage of health care workers.

Sept. 16: The Obama administration ramps up its response to West Africa's Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the afflicted region to supply medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local health care systems and to boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.


http://news.yahoo.com/tracing-rise-ebola-west-africa-165109037.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Why the Ebola Crisis Won't End Without Military Intervention
Bloomberg Businessweek
By Steve Brozak and Anne Marie Noronha  September 16, 2014



Workers wearing personal protective equipment inside the contaminated area at the Elwa Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia  Photograph by Dominique Faget/AFP via Getty Images



Ebola has evoked our worst nightmares as it continues to outrun containment efforts. The staggering death toll of the disease, projected to rise exponentially, means the modern world faces a global crisis on par with the plagues of history. Unlike seven centuries ago, there are viable options to fight the disease on a global scale. The longer the world takes to exercise those options, however, the less effective and more costly they will become.

Most people expect that some biotech company will eventually create a vaccine or antiviral, and the high-tech cure will swiftly arrive where it is most needed. Countless Hollywood blockbusters have implanted such fictions in our psyches. Unfortunately the pace of science is much slower, even in the face of mass loss of life. It’s true that we have sophisticated manufacturing facilities, but only because of U.S. government spending over the last decade by such agencies as BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority) and NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) to address the threat of deadly pathogens. These facilities will become critical to our “mopping up” efforts later on. First, however, we must accept that Ebola is a threat to the entire world.

As the U.N. General Assembly meets on Tuesday, we must come to terms with the fact that a highly coordinated military intervention is absolutely necessary and inevitable. The U.S. and its allies must be obliged to muster a ready force of 15,000 within 30 days, with almost as many health-care personnel to deal with patients and medical screening. Even prior to this, a secured air-bridge system must be initiated while commercial air travel continues to shut down. An air-bridge will be essential to continue uninterrupted transport of health-care workers, medical supplies, and food.

Why is such an organized and robust strategy required? Reports from Liberia indicate that the situation is desperate. Hospitals have become quarantine zones for the dead and soon-to-be dead. Medicine is no longer even being used on people infected with Ebola. It is especially clear that the Liberia’s government is incapable of managing a response; even elected officials have fled the nation. Doctors and nurses have either perished from Ebola or have left the country due to a lack of support and concern for their safety.

Amid the collapse of health-care infrastructure, it is only a matter of time before total chaos descends. The number of infected people is spiraling out of control, with estimates of human infection unreliable. In past outbreaks, transmission contacts in remote areas were counted by the tens; today’s infected contacts can reach the hundreds in an urban setting.

The early symptoms of Ebola—fever, chills and flu-like illness—mimic several other diseases, including malaria. Those who may seem to have the disease are put into wards with patients who really do have Ebola. The impending onset of the hot rainy season will make it even more difficult for remaining health-care workers to adhere to wearing full biohazard suits. This will only aggravate the exponential rise in the number of sick and dead: Some models predict over 100,000 deaths by the end of the year if the rest of the world continues to drag its feet.

Even if Ebola doesn’t mutate to become more infectious, we must accept that this virus is no longer an African problem—so far away geographically that it’s hard to imagine it touching our own lives. A single passenger on a ship or an airplane could spread the virus to another continent. The Ebola crisis is a natural disaster, like a tsunami or earthquake. But unlike natural disasters with limited global consequences, Ebola is perpetual with far-reaching implications. What we must realize is that Africa is our neighbor and Ebola’s global spread is no longer the stuff of fiction.


http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-16/why-the-ebola-crisis-wont-end-without-military-intervention?campaign_id=yhoo

[Buster's Uncle]

Obama to announce surge in aid to fight Ebola
CNBC
By Maggie Fox  14 hours ago



Getty Images



President Barack Obama will announce a major surge in U.S. aid to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa later on Tuesday, with as many as 3,000 military personnel to help organize, train new health care workers and build treatment clinics.

The Department of Defense will divert $500 million for the effort, which will include building 17 new treatment centers with 100 beds each, 10,000 sets of personal protective equipment and the distribution of supplies such as disinfectant and hand sanitizer to help 400,000 families protect themselves and care for sick family members.

"The Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the humanitarian crisis there is a top national security priority for the United States," the White House said in a statement. Obama will announce details when he visits the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Senior administration officials, who asked not to be identified because they don't want to upstage the president, said they believe the surge will start to turn the epidemic around. The World Health Organization (WHO), local leaders and aid groups in West African have all said the epidemic is raging out of control. WHO's latest count has 4,784 people infected, and 2,400 of them dead, but experts all say that's an underestimate as many cases almost certainly have gone uncounted.

WHO says as many as 20,000 could be infected in the coming months. One senior administration official said it could spike to hundreds of thousands.

The ramp-up should create a "backbone" that will give other countries the confidence to send in supplies and money to help, the officials said. There will be a U.S. general coordinating command and control efforts, but the officials said everything will be coordinated with international groups such as WHO and with local governments. They declined to say it amounted to a U.S. takeover of the aid effort.

The U.S. Africa Command will train as many as 500 new healthcare workers a week for six months and longer if needed. WHO and aid groups such as Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders) have said medical staff are by far the greatest need.

"U.S. Africa Command will establish a regional intermediate staging base to facilitate and expedite the transportation of equipment, supplies and personnel," the White House said in a statement. "Just as the outbreak has worsened, our response will be commensurate with the challenge."

Eventually, the U.S. will supply hundreds of thousands of the needed sets of personal protective equipment-which include full body suits, gloves, boots, goggles and masks to protect healthcare workers from the virus. Families will get smaller kits

"In partnership with the United Nations Children Fund, the Paul Allen Family Foundation, and other key partners, we will immediately target the 400,000 most vulnerable households in Liberia," the White House said.

"As part of this effort, this week, USAID will airlift 50,000 home health care kits from Denmark to Liberia to be hand-delivered to distant communities by trained youth volunteers."

Ebola is spread through bodily fluids and people must be in direct contact, so doctors, nurses and other caregivers, including family members, as well as people preparing bodies for burial or disposal, are at highest risk. Experts say good infection control can prevent its spread.

In a sad acknowledgement that many more deaths will come before the epidemic is ended, the U.S. will also send 5,000 body bags.

The U.S. has already promised or spent $175 million in fighting the epidemic in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and has asked Congress for another $88 million. The government's operating without a proper budget but Congress can appropriate the money as part of the emergency legislation, called the continuing resolution, that keeps the government running.

The plans appear to take on board the many calls for the U.S. to greatly step up its involvement, and also for unorthodox treatment approaches. Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham, whose group has played a heavy role in fighting Liberia, told NBC News that he thought hospitals were part of the problem and stand-alone isolation units may be a better solution.

And groups such as MSF have said it's "incomprehensible" that the U.S. and other countries haven't done more before now.

The White House defended its efforts, saying it's done more to fight this outbreak than any other disease outbreak:

"Last month, USAID airlifted more than 16 tons of medical supplies and emergency equipment to Liberia, including: 10,000 sets of personal protective equipment, two water treatment units and two portable water tanks capable of storing 10,000 liters each, and 100 rolls of plastic sheeting which can be used in the construction of Ebola treatment units," it said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other U.S. agencies have 100 people in West Africa, the National Institutes of Health is working to develop drugs and vaccines.

"CDC has provided on the ground expertise in the largest international response in its history," the White House said.

Later on Tuesday, the Senate health and appropriations committees will hold a hearing on Ebola. Speakers will include Dr. Kent Brantly, the medical missionary who was infected with Ebola and survived after a dramatic evacuation; Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and Robin Robinson, who heads the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.


http://news.yahoo.com/obama-announce-surge-aid-fight-040000418.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Billion dollar Ebola fight seen as US pledges 3,000 troops
AFP
By Nina Larson  26 minutes ago



Volunteers raise awareness of the symptoms of Ebola at a school in Abidjan, on September 15, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sia Kambou)



Geneva (AFP) - Nearly one billion dollars is needed to fight the Ebola outbreak raging in west Africa, the United Nations said Tuesday, while Washington pledged 3,000 troops to try to "turn the tide" of the epidemic.

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, warning that the virus could infect 20,000 people by the end of the year, said it posed a "huge funding challenge".

"If not dealt with effectively now, Ebola could become a major humanitarian crisis in countries currently affected," she told reporters in Geneva.

The capacity of worst-hit Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to provide even the most basic necessities is "on the brink of collapse", she warned.

US President Barack Obama was set to outline an assistance strategy on Tuesday, including the deployment of 3,000 US military personnel and plans to train up to 500 health care providers per week in Liberia.

The United Nations said the response to the crisis would require $987.8 million (763 million euros), with about half needed for the most affected country, Liberia.

Shortly after, the World Bank approved a $105 million grant, part of a $200 million pledge made in early August aimed at helping people cope with the economic impact of the crisis and strengthening public health systems.

"The world needs to do much, much more to respond to the Ebola crisis in these three countries," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.



Liberian Red Cross health workers wearing protective suits carry the body of a victim of the Ebola virus on September 12, 2014 in a district of Monrovia (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)


The announcements came amid mounting global alarm over the worst-ever Ebola epidemic, which by Friday had claimed 2,461 lives out of 4,985 cases, according to fresh numbers from the World Health Organization.


- 'Unprecedented' surge needed -

Guinea said Tuesday it was postponing its Independence Day celebrations -- due on October 2 -- until some point in December.

The UN document estimates that by year-end Guinea will account for 16 percent of infections, compared with 34 percent in Sierra Leone and 40 percent in Liberia.

If the international community and affected countries respond swiftly and energetically, transmission should begin to slow by the end of the year and halt by mid-2015, it said.

"The level of surge we need to do is unprecedented. It is massive," the United Nations' Ebola coordinator David Nabarro told reporters.

China will send a 59-person mobile laboratory team from its Centre for Disease Control to Sierra Leone, including epidemiologists, clinicians and nurses -- bringing the number of Chinese medics in the country to 174, the WHO said Tuesday.



World Health Organization emergency chief Bruce Aylward holds a report on the Ebola virus during a press conference on September 16, 2014 at the UN offices in Geneva (AFP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini)


The EU, Britain, France and Cuba have also pledged to send medical teams and other aid to the region.

But this is far from enough, warned Joanne Liu, head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity.

Noting that the known Ebola toll "represents only a fraction of the real number," she stressed that "the ground response remains totally and lethally inadequate."


- 'Window of opportunity closing' -

"The window of opportunity to contain this outbreak is closing," she told Tuesday's meeting of UN agencies, member states and other actors involved in the Ebola fight.

WHO emergency chief Bruce Aylward agreed.

"This health crisis we face is unparallelled in modern times. We don't know where the numbers are going."

He stressed the difficulty of estimating infection and death rates.

"The numbers can be kept in the tens of thousands, but that is going to require a much faster escalation of the response if we're to beat the escalation of the virus," he said.

Liu meanwhile warned that Ebola was affecting far more than the people infected with the disease.

"While thousands have died of Ebola, many more are dying from easily treatable conditions and diseases because health centres no longer function," she said.

"States have a political and humanitarian responsibility to halt this mounting disaster," she said. "The clock is ticking."

WHO said it would reconvene its emergency committee in Geneva this week to consider further measures, while the UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on Thursday to discuss ways to ramp up the global response.

The Ebola virus can fell its victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea -- in some cases shutting down organs and causing unstoppable bleeding.

No licenced vaccine or treatment exists but health experts are looking at fast-tracking two potential vaccines and eight treatments, including the drug ZMapp.


http://news.yahoo.com/un-says-1-0-billion-needed-fight-ebola-005314046.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Obama's Ebola response: Is it enough and in time?
Associated Press
By LAURAN NEERGAARD and JIM KUHNHENN  1 hour ago



President Barack Obama will travel next week to Atlanta to address the Ebola crisis during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says Obama will be in Atlanta on Tuesday. (Sept. 15



WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama declared Tuesday that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa could threaten security around the world, and he ordered 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region in emergency aid muscle for a crisis spiraling out of control.

The question was whether the aid would be enough and was coming in time. An ominous World Health Organization forecast said that with so many people now spreading the virus, the number of Ebola cases could start doubling every three weeks.

"If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us," Obama said Tuesday after briefings in Atlanta with doctors and officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University.

Obama called on other countries to join in quickly supplying more health workers, equipment and money.

"It's a potential threat to global security if these countries break down," Obama said, speaking of the hardest-hit nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. At least 2,400 people have died, with Liberia bearing the brunt. Nearly 5,000 people have fallen ill in those countries and Nigeria and Senegal since the disease was first recognized in March. WHO says it anticipates the figure could rise to more than 20,000, and the disease could end up costing nearly $1 billion to contain.

Obama described the task ahead as "daunting" but said there was hope in the fact that "the world knows how to fight this disease."



President Barack Obama speaks at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. Obama traveled to the CDC, to address the Ebola crisis and announced that he is sending 3,000 American troops to West Africa nations fight the spread of the Ebola epidemic. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)


His expression grim, he described the "gut-wrenching" scene of a family in Liberia. The father had died, the mother was cradling a sick 5-year old, her 10-year-old was dying, too, and the family had reached a treatment center but couldn't get in.

"These men and women and children are just sitting, waiting to die, right now." Obama said. "And it doesn't have to be this way."

The U.S. is promising to deliver 17 hundred-bed treatment centers to Liberia, where contagious patients often sit in the streets, turned away from packed Ebola units. The Pentagon expects to have the first treatment units open within a few weeks, part of the heightened U.S. response that also includes training more local health care workers.

"This massive ramp-up of support from the United States is precisely the kind of transformational change we need to get a grip on the outbreak and begin to turn it around," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.

Doctors Without Borders, which has sounded the alarm for months, also welcomed the U.S. effort but said it must be put into action immediately — and that other countries must follow suit because the window to contain the virus is closing.



President Barack Obama walks away from the podium after speaking at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. Obama traveled to the CDC, to address the Ebola crisis and announced that he is sending 3,000 American troops to West Africa nations fight the spread of the Ebola epidemic. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)


"The response to Ebola continues to fall dangerously behind, and too many lives are being lost," said Brice de le Vingne, the group's director of operations. "We need more countries to stand up, we need greater concrete action on the ground, and we need it now."

Dr. Kent Brantly, an American physician who survived Ebola he contracted while working in Liberia, met with Obama at the White House Tuesday. He is one of three aid workers with Ebola who have been treated at Emory.

Later, he told a packed Senate hearing, "We must move quickly and immediately to deliver the promises that have been made."

CDC's Dr. Beth Bell told senators the outbreak is "ferocious and spreading exponentially."

"If we do not act now to stop Ebola, we could be dealing with it for years to come," she warned.



President Barack Obama, left, talks during a meeting with Emory University doctors and healthcare professionals at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. Obama traveled to the CDC, to address the Ebola crisis and announced that he is sending 3,000 American troops to West Africa nations fight the spread of the Ebola epidemic. Sitting with Obama is Dr. Bruce S. Ribner, Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine and Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)


Congress still must vote on an Obama administration request for $88 million more to help the Ebola fight, including funding CDC work in West Africa through December and speeding development of experimental treatments and vaccines.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said urgent action was needed. "We must take the dangerous, deadly threat of the Ebola epidemic as seriously as we take ISIS," he said, referring to the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

But some lawmakers questioned if the heightened U.S. response will be enough.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said, "My math says we're going to be behind the eight ball on Day 1 because we won't have enough beds."

An aid worker from Sierra Leone put a face on the region's desperation. Ishmeal Alfred Charles of Freetown told senators that as he prepared to leave home, his 10-year-old daughter asked, "They said there is no Ebola in America. Why can't you take us along?"



Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly, former Medical Director of Samaritan's Purse Ebola Care Center in Monrovia, Liberia, center, talks with Emira Woods, right, Director of Social Impact at ThoughtWorks, right, before the start of a hearing on Ebola before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. Brantly's wife Amber watches at left. Woods thanked Brantly for his work fighting Ebola in Liberia. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)


The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Thursday on the crisis, and the head of the United Nations said the General Assembly will follow up with a high-level meeting next week as the world body "is taking the lead now" on the international fight.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the 3,000 troops would not provide direct care to Ebola patients. In addition to delivering the 17 treatment facilities, they will help train as many as 500 local health care workers a week. Among the other initiatives, the military will:

—Set up a headquarters in Monrovia, Liberia, led by Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, head of U.S. Army Africa.

—Build a regional transportation and staging base in Senegal where the U.S. will help coordinate the contributions of other allies and partners.

—Provide home health care kits to hundreds of thousands of households, designed to help healthy people caring for Ebola-stricken family members. That includes 50,000 that the U.S. Agency for International Development will deliver to Liberia this week.



Graphic lists some initiatives planned to ramp up the U.S. response to Ebola outbreak in West Africa; 2c x 3 inches; 96.3 mm x 76 mm;


—Carry out a home- and community-based campaign to train local populations on how to handle exposed patients.

In Monrovia, Boima Folley runs a sport materials shop and said he'd welcome the U.S. military response.

"We have been praying to get the disease wiped out of our country, so if the coming of U.S. troops will help us get that done, we should be happy," he said. "The soldiers don't have to have medical backgrounds."

The U.S. already had spent more than $100 million fighting the outbreak. Obama administration officials said the cost of the military response would come from $500 million in overseas contingency operations, such as the war in Afghanistan, that the Pentagon already has asked Congress to redirect for West Africa.

___

Jim Kuhnhenn reported from Atlanta. AP writers Lolita Baldor and Jennifer C. Kerr in Washington and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/us-assign-3-000-us-military-fight-ebola-071635320--politics.html