"@PzFeed: Obama administration to assign 3,000 US military personnel to combat Ebola in West Africa. AP"


[link to www.cnbc.com]

President Barack Obama will announce a major surge in U.S. aid to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa later on Tuesday, with as many as 3,000 military personnel to help organize, train new health care workers and build treatment clinics.
The Department of Defense will divert $500 million for the effort, which will include building 17 new treatment centers with 100 beds each, 10,000 sets of personal protective equipment and the distribution of supplies such as disinfectant and hand sanitizer to help 400,000 families protect themselves and care for sick family members.

"The Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the humanitarian crisis there is a top national security priority for the United States," the White House said in a statement. Obama will announce details when he visits the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Senior administration officials, who asked not to be identified because they don't want to upstage the president, said they believe the surge will start to turn the epidemic around. The World Health Organization (WHO), local leaders and aid groups in West African have all said the epidemic is raging out of control. WHO's latest count has 4,784 people infected, and 2,400 of them dead, but experts all say that's an underestimate as many cases almost certainly have gone uncounted.

More in link