As U.S. troops head home, Obama marks "next phase" of Ebola fight
All but 100 of the 1,300 U.S. troops working to halt the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa will come home by the end of April, President Obama said Wednesday, marking a new phase in the international effort to contain a disease that has claimed thousands of lives over the last year.
"While our troops are coming home, America's work is not done," President Obama said during remarks at the White House. "Our mission is not complete. Today, we move into the next phase of the fight: winding down our military response while expanding our civilian response."
The president devoted a majority of his remarks to thanking the troops and public health officials who have traveled to West Africa to assist containment efforts.
"Because of your extraordinary work, we have made enormous progress in just a few months," he said. "The main reason we're here today is for me to say thank you."
A fact sheet the White House circulated ahead of the event offered a breakdown of the progress made thus far in the fight against Ebola.
In Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the three countries hardest hit by the epidemic, new infections have been dramatically reduced. In Liberia, for example, there were 119 confirmed new cases of Ebola each week during the peak of the outbreak. That number, this week, stands at only three new cases. In Sierra Leone, there were 534 cases per week at the epidemic's peak; this week there were 76 confirmed new cases.
The president hailed the progress made by the U.S.-led response to the virus, particularly the construction of public health systems in the affected countries that, he said, will now enable them to take the lead in the fight against the virus.
"Logistics have been set up, Ebola treatment units have been built, over 1,500 African health workers have been trained," he said.
America's troops are coming home, Mr. Obama added, "not because the job is done, but because they were so effective in setting up the infrastructure" to combat the disease.
The focus of the response, the president said, will shift "from fighting the epidemic to now extinguishing it."
He said the U.S. will remain vigilant to prevent an outbreak of the virus here at home, but he warned, as he has before, that the country can't simply seal itself off from the outside world.
"As long as Ebola simmers anywhere in the world, we will have some Ebola fighting heroes who are coming back home with the disease from time to time," he said.
Attending the president's speech were several health workers who survived Ebola after contracting the disease abroad or in the U.S., including physicians Kent Brantley, Ian Crozier, Craig Spencer, and Rick Sacra, along with nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the current Ebola outbreak centered in West Africa, beginning in March of last year, has claimed over 9,100 lives to date.
Ron Klain, who was named the U.S. government's Ebola response coordinator last year, will step down from that job on February 15, the administration announced last month.