Obama to boost U.S. involvement in fight against Ebola
President Obama is expected to announce a plan to increase U.S. efforts to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa when he visits the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta Tuesday.
The U.S. has spent more than $100 million so far, Ned Price of the National Security Council told the Associated Press, and the U.S. Agency for International Development announced last week that it would spend up to $75 million more to send hospital beds to Liberia and 130,000 protective suits for health workers. The administration has also requested that Congress authorize an additional $88 million for supplies and experts in the disease, as well as research on a potential medication and vaccines.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the president is considering sending additional portable hospitals, doctors, health-care experts and medical supplies as well as conducting training for health workers in Liberia and other affected countries in the region.
"There's a lot that we've been putting toward this, but it is not sufficient," Lisa Monaco, Mr. Obama's counterterrorism adviser, told the Journal in an interview. "So the president has directed a more scaled-up response and that's what you're going to hear more about on Tuesday."
The U.S. is already sending some military personnel to help contain the outbreak by setting up a 25-bed field hospital in the Liberian capital to treat health care workers, the Pentagon said last week. But they are also going to train American doctors and nurses who can volunteer in the outbreak zone, the Associated Press reported.
The U.S. efforts are aimed at controlling the outbreak, improving the capacity of African countries to treat the sick, strengthen training for local health workers and getting more involvement from international organizations like the United Nations.
Mr. Obama will seek more funds, materials and health workers at a United Nations meeting next week, the Journal reports.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, who chairs a Foreign Relations subcommittee that oversees African issues said last week that, "This is also not everything we can and should be doing." He urged a more aggressive military response.
At the CDC, Mr. Obama will discuss the U.S. response to the outbreak. Ebola has spread through Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, and has reportedly killed more than 2,200 people across West Africa.
While the virus is unlikely to make it to the United States since it is not airborne, Mr. Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press" last earlier this month that it should be considered a "national security priority."
"We're going to have to get U.S. military assets just to set up, for example, isolation units and equipment there to provide security for public health workers surging from around the world," Mr. Obama said. "If we do that, then it's still going to be months before this problem is controllable in Africa. But it shouldn't reach our shores... If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads not just through Africa, but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that the virus mutates, it becomes more easily transmittable, and then it could be a serious danger to the United States."
The head of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Thomas Frieden, warned in early September that the outbreak was "spiraling out of control."
Experts say that more international and local health workers are needed, not just beds. But many health workers have been reluctant to respond to the crisis because they are concerned there isn't enough protective equipment to keep them safe.