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As the White House seeks to reassure Americans that the U.S. health-care system is “well-equipped to treat the virus and stop it from spreading,” and “is prepared to deal with this crisis,” the Department of Defense (DOD) and other government agencies are also busy reassuring the public that our troops — 4,000 of them — to be deployed to West Africa to help with the Ebola crisis “ will receive the best equipment and training beforehand, be monitored on the ground and be screened before they go home.”
There are already 205 U.S. service members now in Liberia, and another 26 in neighboring Senegal. Read here.
Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, commander of U.S. Africa Command, joined members of the Obama administration and medical experts in a news briefing at the White House yesterday.
From a DOD news release:
“As we deploy America’s sons and daughters to support the comprehensive U.S. government effort led by the U.S. Agency for International Development, we’ll do everything in our power to address and mitigate any potential risk to our service members and civilian employees and their families,” General Rodriguez said in his remarks.
He also said that the troops in Monrovia are focusing on command and control to help support and coordinate USAID and international community efforts, and on training the people who man and manage the Ebola treatment units.
“We’re assessing risk based on the service member’s mission, their location, and their activities in execution of their operations,” Rodriguez added. “We’re implementing procedures to reduce or eliminate the risk of transmission as service members go about their daily missions, including the use of personal protective equipment, hygiene protocols and monitoring.”
Before service members are sent back home, anyone who faced an elevated risk or exposure will be identified and screened, the general said, and all necessary steps will be taken to minimize any potential transmission in accordance with international standards put in place by medical professionals.
“In the end,” Rodriguez said, “our equipment, training, procedures, and most of all the discipline of our leaders and our force, will help us to ensure that our team accomplishes its mission without posing a risk to our nation and our fellow citizens.”
In his remarks, U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah said the U.S. effort in West Africa includes a major effort to control the disease, specific actions to deal with secondary impacts of the crisis in several West African countries — including making food, water and government support more available — and efforts to build out an international coalition.
“Our response in West Africa started in the spring and accelerated dramatically over the summer,” Shah said.
“This coordinated civilian response included the largest-ever disaster assistance response team from USAID; a more than 100-person Centers for Disease Control disease-control capability deployed to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and countries throughout the region; and efforts partnering with our Department of Defense colleagues to more than double the laboratory and diagnostic capacity in West Africa,” the administrator added.
Since then, Shah said, teams have helped deliver more than 120,000 sets of personal protective equipment, expand Ebola treatment units, provide technical assistance for airport screening throughout the region, and increase the basic capacity of a weak health care infrastructure to deal with the disease through a “threefold strategy.”
As to dealing with bodies of patients who are deceased from Ebola in a safe and dignified manner, Shah said, “We now have more than 50 safe-burial teams with full protective equipment and careful protocols in place.” He added, “and we’re noting that more than three-quarters of all bodies in Liberia of positively identified patients are now being cleared safely within the 24-hour period.”
A USAID safe-burial team trained to handle the bodies of those infected with Ebola works in Monrovia, Liberia, Sept. 26, 2014. USAID photo by Morgana Wingard.
Shah said this is critically important because local burial practices are an important existing mode of Ebola transmission.
“The scale-up of [CDC] and USAID efforts through June and August was quite significant,” the administrator added.
“But the complexity of building out Ebola treatment units and providing the logistics support in terms of protective equipment and medicines required the significant additional resources brought by the Department of Defense and announced by President Obama,” he said.
Lead image:Surrounded by Ebola patients, a health worker, center, gives a thumbs-up to visitors near the hot zone, defined by the double barrier orange fence, in Liberia, Sept. 26, 2014. If a sick person falls, the patient cannot contaminate the clean zone. U.S. Africa Command is supporting the effort by providing command and control, logistics, training and engineering assets. U.S. Agency for International Development is the lead U.S. government organization. Photo DOD/USAID
