The United States has pledged to send 3,000 troops to West Africa, using its military muscle to battle the biggest ever outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, with an unprecedented mission to build treatment clinics and train health workers.
President Barack Obama outlined the action yesterday, his second announcement of a major military operation in two weeks after his declaration that Washington would bomb Islamic State fighters in the Middle East.
The US action, which goes far further than previous offers of aid, won praise from aid workers and officials in the region, but health experts said it was still not enough to contain the fast-spreading epidemic.
The death toll from the deadly fever, which spreads rapidly, causes uncontrolled bleeding and fever and typically kills more than half of its victims, has doubled in the past month to 2,461, mostly in three countries in West Africa.
The World Health Organisation said a “much faster” response was needed to limit the number of cases to the tens of thousands.
“This health crisis we’re facing is unparalleled in modern times,” WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward told a news conference in Geneva.
“We don’t know where the numbers are going on this.”
Residents in Liberia, where the US force will be based and Ebola is spiralling out of control, celebrated the news that US troops were coming, recalling a previous military operation in 2003 that helped stabilise the country during a civil war.
However, UN officials issued stern warnings of the scale of the task ahead, saying the cost of the response had multiplied tenfold in a month to $1 billion.
It is not enough to provide protective clothing when you don’t have the people who will wear them
A previous forecast of 20,000 Ebola cases no longer seemed high, one said, as weak West African healthcare systems have buckled from the strain.
The outbreak was first confirmed in the remote forests of southeastern Guinea in March and has since spread across neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia. A handful of deaths have also been recorded in Nigeria.
The disease has so far killed about half of those known to be infected. Aid workers say recorded cases likely represent just part of the total, and experts say the mortality rate is likely to rise as more cases are tallied and more victims succumb.
The US plan marks a dramatic increase from Washington’s initial response last week, which focussed on providing funding and supplies but drew criticism from aid workers for not deploying significant US manpower.
US troops will now set up a command hub in Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves, as well as building 17 treatment centres and training thousands of local health workers. It was not clear when the troops would start deploying.
“This is welcome news. This is what we expected from the US long time ago,” Anthony Mulbah, a student at the University of Monrovia, said in the dilapidated ocean-front capital.
“The US remains a strong partner to Liberia.”
The disease has swamped weak health systems, infecting hundreds of local staff in a region chronically short of doctors.
The WHO has said that 500-600 more foreign experts and at least 10,000 more local health workers are needed.
“It is not enough to provide protective clothing when you don’t have the people who will wear them,” Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama said during a visit to Sierra Leone.