U.S. troops to have no direct contact with Ebola victims

[nitpicker]

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140919/NEWS05/309190080/U-S-troops-no-direct-contact-Ebola-victims

U.S. troops to have no direct contact with Ebola victims
Sep. 19, 2014 - 03:52PM |
By Andrew Tilghman
Staff writer

The 3,000 U.S. troops who will deploy to West Africa to help contain the Ebola epidemic will not have direct exposure to patients infected with the potentially deadly virus, a top defense official said Friday.

(snip)
On Thursday, a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane arrived in Liberia and seven military personnel began assessing the capacity of the runways at Roberts International Airport outside the capital of Monrovia. That followed Wednesday’s arrival of the mission’s commander, Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, chief of U.S. Army forces in Africa, and his 12-person assessment team, Kirby said. This weekend, two additional C-17s will arrive in Liberia along with about 45 more U.S. military personnel, who will begin establishing the command headquarters.

The U.S. military’s mission will focus on the logistics underlying the massive effort to treat those who are stricken with the deadly virus. U.S. troops will help train civilian medical personnel, build 17 new 100-bed treatment centers and provide logistical support to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is coordinating the international aid operation.

(snip)
In total, the military operation will involve about 3,000 troops and up to $1 billion from the Pentagon budget and will last about six months, Kirby said.

U.S. troops will receive protective gear and specialized training to avoid contracting Ebola.
(snip)

[nitpicker]

1. New U.N. Ebola Mission Will Depend on International Support

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=123222

New U.N. Ebola Mission Will Depend on International Support

By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2014 – In an emergency session yesterday convened by the United States, 131 members of the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution declaring the Ebola outbreak spreading now in Africa a threat to international peace and security.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that the United Nations will deploy a new emergency health mission to combat the deadly viral disease. He sent the details of the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, in a letter to the Security Council and the U.N. General Assembly, whose 69th session opened Sept. 16 in New York.
(snip)

Ban said the estimated need was for a 20-fold increase in assistance, and that earlier in the week the United Nations outlined a set of critical needs totaling nearly $1 billion over the next six months. A key enabler, he added, is medical evacuation capacity.

(snip)
In her remarks during the emergency session, World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan also praised U.S. and United Kingdom military contributions to the Ebola effort.
(snip)
“The fact that the U.S., U.K., China, Cuba and other countries are using a variety of assets, including military assets, speaks to the complexity of the challenge,” the director-general said.

(snip)
United States has established a military command center in the nation’s capital Monrovia to support civilian efforts against the region’s Ebola epidemic. The effort, Operation United Assistance, will involve an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces and will be led, the president said, by Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, commander of U.S. Army Africa, the Army component of U.S. Africa Command. The president said the team on the ground would create an air bridge to speed health workers and medical supplies into West Africa, and establish a staging area in Senegal to more quickly get personnel and aid on the ground.

(snip)
DoD would be prepared to devote up to $1 billion to Ebola response efforts. A portion of funding will be used to fulfill requirements identified by CDC, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Joint Staff and Africom.

The funds will provide military air transportation for DoD and non-DoD personnel and supplies, medical treatment facilities, personnel protective equipment and medical supplies, logistics and engineering support, and subject matter experts in support of sanitation and mortuary affairs.

Other DoD efforts underway include:
-- The command’s service members will establish a site to train up to 500 health care providers per week.

-- In August, USAID deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, to West Africa to coordinate and prioritize the U.S. government’s outbreak response. The 28-member team includes staff from USAID, DoD, CDC and the U.S. Forest Service.

-- In late August, the DART airlifted 5,000 body bags to step up support for the safe removal and transport of bodies of Ebola victims and 500 infrared thermometers to bolster Ebola screening efforts.

-- DoD’s Cooperative Threat Reduction, or CTR, program is redirecting $25 million to provide personal protective equipment and laboratory reagents, support for technical advisors, and other requests as validated by the DART.

-- DoD has requested to reprogram $60 million to allow the CTR program to address urgent biosafety, biosecurity, and disease biosurveillance needs in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and bolster the capabilities of neighboring countries and other partners in Africa.

-- DoD plans to send a field-deployable hospital to Liberia and has provided more than 10,000 Ebola test kits to the Liberian Institute of Biological Research and to Sierra Leone's Kenema Government Hospital.

-- DoD has provided personal protective equipment and training to local medical professionals in affected regions.