Among the specific response efforts, the United States has:
Deployed to West Africa more than 130 civilian medical, healthcare, and disaster response experts from multiple U.S. government departments and agencies as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Disaster Assistance Response Team as well as approximately 350 U.S. military personnel, constituting the largest U.S. response to an international public health challenge;
Increased the number of Ebola treatment units (ETU) in the region, including supporting ETUs in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and one of our new ETUs in Liberia discharged its first four Ebola survivors last week;
Increased to 50 the number of safe burial teams, which are now working across every county in Liberia to safely and respectfully dispose of bodies;
Deployed and commenced operation of five mobile Ebola testing labs in the region, two of which opened this week in Liberia and have doubled lab capacity in the country—reducing from several days to just a few hours the time needed to determine if a patient has Ebola;
Provided more than 10,000 Ebola test kits to the Liberian Institute of Biological Research and Sierra Leone’s Kenema Government Hospital;
Received and passed to interested humanitarian organizations information from nearly 2,200 volunteers willing to provide healthcare in the affected countries;
Delivered approximately 2,200 rolls of USAID heavy-duty plastic sheeting for use in constructing Ebola treatment units across the region;
Procured 140,000 sets of personal protective equipment, 10,000 of which have already been delivered, along with hundreds of thousands of medical gloves and thousands of protective coveralls, goggles, face shields, and other personal protective supplies;
Delivered an initial 9,000 of 50,000 community care kits to Liberia;
Supported aggressive public education campaigns reaching every Liberian county with life-saving information on how to identify, treat and prevent Ebola;
Administered nutritional support to patients receiving care at Ebola treatment units and in Ebola-affected communities across the region; and
Provided technical support to the Government of Liberia’s national-level emergency operation center.
In the days and weeks to come, U.S. efforts will include:
Scaling-up the DoD presence in West Africa. Following the completion of AFRICOM’s assessment, DoD announced the planned deployment of 3,200 troops, including 700 from the 101st Airborne Division headquarters element to Liberia. These forces will deploy in late October and become the headquarters staff for the Joint Forces Command, led by Major General Gary Volesky. The total U.S. troop commitment will depend on the requirements on the ground;
Overseeing the construction of and facilitating staffing for at least 17 100-bed Ebola treatment units across Liberia;
Deploying additional U.S. military personnel from various engineering units to help supervise the construction of ETUs and provide engineering expertise for the international response in Liberia;
Establishing a training site in Liberia to train up to 500 health care providers per week, enabling them to provide safe and direct supportive medical care to Ebola patients;
Setting up and facilitating staffing for a hospital in Liberia that will treat all healthcare workers who are working in West Africa on the Ebola crisis should they fall ill;
Operating a training course in the United States for licensed nurses, physicians, and other healthcare providers intending to work in an ETU in West Africa;
Leveraging a regional staging base in Senegal to help expedite the surge of equipment, supplies, and personnel to West Africa;
Continuing outreach by all levels of the U.S. government to push for increased and speedier response contributions from partners around the globe; and,
Sustaining engagement with the UN system to coordinate response and improve effectiveness.
Marburg shows up in Uganda. Hemorrhagic fever thing in Venezuela. Congo hemorrhagic fever.
Outbreak of a different hemorrhagic fever in Sudan.