Ebola poses a new challenge to U.S. military

As reported from Wall Street Journal update of Sept. 17, 2014. U.S. President Barack Obama warned about Ebola that though this epidemic outbreak chances in the U.S. are immensely less. Then too Ebola is such an epidemic that it could infect hundreds of thousands of people & also pose security indirectly on a further extent. Obama also said “It’s a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic,” in a meeting at Centers for Disease Control & Prevention which made a largest deployment of 100 staff to the affected countries.

Obama plans to curb the Ebola outbreak & involved the U.S. military. The operation will involve the military to lesser the risks of Americans infected with the disease. As American military has a past record of humanitarian response to crisis of 2010 earthquake, cholera outbreak in Haiti & also the East African refugee crisis due to Rwandan genocide in 1994. Military personnel will join their hands to counterpart against Ebola with their training in bio-warfare, logistical expertise & engineering experience by setting up of 17 field hospitals each comprising of 100 beds.

Morrison said: “This is unprecedented as a public-health operation led by the U.S. military,” In addition Morrison said this military humanitarian relief effort taken by the U.S. will take longer. And the Public health & humanitarian aid experts had cautioned that all the success of the plan will rely on setting up of the new treatment centers & engaging staff.

Till now as per the World Health Organization’s official toll shows 4,963 cases with 2,453 deaths, but the original toll rates are three to four times as high according to epidemiologists. Promise of aids of more than 60% or $200.3 million of Ebola related humanitarian aid had been recorded by the U.N’s financial tracking service.  And WHO said that as a new promise of aid China send 59 people mobile laboratory team to Sierra Leone including epidemiologists, doctors & nurses.

In addition to temporary bill of $88 million, Obama plans to add $500 million for Ebola response plan through request made to Congress from the funds of lawmakers overseas contingencies. “I think in the coming weeks you’re going to see the Congress and the administration take further steps to look at how we can best contain this very horrible disease,” House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Tuesday. In a rare moment of praise for the White House, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he backed Obama’s efforts. “What the administration’s doing is correct,” said McConnell. “The Ebola funding is important,” he said, noting that he planned to vote for the spending bill.

“Look, the way we’re going to win the war on Ebola is if we’re going to break the chain of transmission,” said James Dorbor Jallah, the national coordinator of Liberia’s Ebola Task Force. “It’s a good start, but I think a lot more can be done,” he said, adding that local health workers need the capacity to test whether someone is infected with the disease.

Liberians received this move of Ebola’s intensified American response.