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Obama steps up support in Ebola fight

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is ramping up its response to West Africa’s Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 United States military personnel to the afflicted region — supplying medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local healthcare systems — and boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is ramping up its response to West Africa’s Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 United States military personnel to the afflicted region — supplying medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local healthcare systems — and boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.

President Barack Obama planned to announce the stepped-up effort later yesterday during a visit to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta amid alarm that the outbreak could spread and that the deadly virus could mutate, administration officials said on Monday.

The new muscle comes after appeals from the region and aid organisations for a heightened US role in combating the outbreak blamed for more than 2,200 deaths.

The officials said the cost of the effort would come from US$500 million (S$630 million) in overseas contingency operations. They said it would take about two weeks to get US forces on the ground.

Hardest hit by the outbreak are Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of sick patients, making doctors and nurses especially vulnerable to contracting the virus, which has no vaccine or approved treatment.

The US effort will include medics and corpsmen for treatment and training, engineers to help erect the treatment facilities and specialists in logistics to assist in patient transportation.

Mr Obama’s trip to the CDC comes a day after the US also demanded a stepped-up international response to the outbreak. On Monday, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Ms Samantha Power, called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council tomorrow, warning that the potential risk of the virus could “set the countries of West Africa back a generation”.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected to brief the council along with Dr Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization’s chief, and Dr David Nabarro, the recently named UN coordinator to tackle the disease.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, responding to criticism that the US needed a more forceful response to the outbreak, said on Monday that Mr Obama has identified the outbreak as a top national security priority, worried that it could contribute to political instability in the region and that, left unchecked, the virus could transform and become more contagious.

Four Americans have been or are being treated for Ebola in the US after evacuation from Africa. The US has spent more than US$100 million responding to the outbreak and has offered to operate treatment centres for patients. AP

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