In the last 24 hours we've seen a major escalation of the assessed risk from the Ebola epidemic raging through Western Africa. Yesterday the United Nation increased the estimate of the needed resources tenfold to
$1 Billion, and President Obama warned hundreds of thousands could become infected before we can bring this threat under control, and that the threat was not just from the disease itself, pledging
/$500 million, and 3,000 U.S. troops to set up a command and control center in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, 17 field treatment units, with 1,700 beds, and to conduct training in Liberia, the hardest hit nation.
Nick Cumming-Bruce, of the New York Times reports the U.N. Sees Need for $1 Billion to Fight Ebola.
GENEVA — The Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa risks ballooning into a humanitarian catastrophe without a major surge in international efforts to contain it, senior United Nations officials said Tuesday, estimating the cost of this effort at $1 billion.
The number of people affected by the disease is still rising at an “almost exponential” rate, Bruce Aylward, an assistant director general of the World Health Organization, said at a news conference in Geneva. He said the number of reported cases had climbed to 4,985, including 2,461 deaths. Half of the infections and deaths occurred in the past 21 days, he said, underscoring the acceleration of the outbreak. “We don’t really know where the numbers are going with this,” Mr. Aylward said.
Dr. Nabarro said the funding the United Nations estimated was needed to tackle the crisis had jumped tenfold from $100 million a month ago. He justified the increase with the somber assessment that the outbreak would “go on doubling in that sort of frequency if we don’t deal with it.”
Jen Christensen and
Kevin Liptak, of
CNN write
Obama: U.S. ready to take the lead in Ebola fight
The CDC already has hundreds of professionals on the ground in what the President described as the "largest international response in the history of the CDC."
USAID will give 400,000 treatment kits with sanitizer and other protective items like gloves to families to help them protect their own safety as they care for sick relatives.
Tuesday, WHO announced that China dispatched a mobile laboratory team to Sierra Leone to help test for the virus. The team of 59 from the Chinese Center for Disease Control includes epidemiologists, clinicians and nurses. This team will join 115 Chinese medical staff already on the ground in Sierra Leone.
There is also a concern about the possibility that the virus could mutate into an even more dangerous form. ... Ebola currently transmits only though contact with bodily fluids; a mutation that allows the virus to spread through the air would pose a catastrophic threat to people worldwide, health experts say.
From the
Wall Street Journal, we learn
Ebola Poses a New Challenge for U.S. Military: Troops Face Pressure to Set Up African Hospitals Quickly, Minimize Disease Risks.
Mr. Obama on Tuesday warned that the epidemic could not only infect "hundreds of thousands of people,'' but carry wide security implications, even though chances of an outbreak in the U.S. are "extremely low.''
"It's a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic," Mr. Obama said after a briefing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has deployed more than 100 staff to the affected countries, one of the largest deployments in its history.
Mr. Obama said the epidemic of the virus is "spiraling out of control…spreading faster and exponentially." ...
The operation will require the military to fuse its experience in responding to natural disasters with its training in biowarfare to minimize the risks of Americans contracting the disease. Personnel will bring medical assistance and training, logistical expertise and engineering experience to set up 17 field hospitals with 100 beds each, more than tripling current capacity.
The U.S. military expects to be able to set up the field units in the next several weeks.
Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) praised President Obama's efforts, and many in Liberia, which was founded by free former American slaves expressed great appreciation.
I too wish to thank President Obama for taking this much needed action. I suspect this effort will need to be significantly enhanced before we can get this unprecedented and out of control epidemic reigned in, but this is an impressive start I hope other nations will emulate.
7:05 AM PT: Akbar Shahid Ahmed write Senators Want Broader U.S. Response To Ebola
Senators at a joint hearing of a health committee and an appropriations subcommittee said they were prepared to approve Obama's $88 million request to expand the U.S. response. But they described Ebola as a threat to the world and suggested bigger steps than those announced by the president on Tuesday. Obama said his strategy for tackling the outbreak includes sending 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the Liberian capital of Monrovia, training 500 local health care workers per week, constructing 17 local health care facilities, and providing thousands of home care kits.
"What's happening in West Africa is happening because of the failure of a public health system" that lacks an equivalent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who chairs both committees. "We have spent lots of taxpayer dollars in shoring up military operations around the world so people can defend themselves against insurgencies, and yet on this one aspect we have been woefully inadequate. It's like we expect our CDC to do everything. ... We need those other CDCs, those forward outposts where people can defend themselves and in turn defend us."
Harkin and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said they were concerned about leadership for the U.S. response. While efforts in West Africa are led by the Agency for International Development, Mikulski said she didn't know who was leading the administration's efforts in Washington. The White House should identify a point person, Mikulski said.
Republicans, of course, wasted no time alleging an underwhelming administration response. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said, "My math says we're going to be behind the eight ball on Day 1 because we won't have enough beds."
Isn't sort of annoying when Republicans criticize President Obama's "underwhelming" response, when up to a few days ago they are refusing to approve of even half of his budget requests for assistance?