US President Barack Obama has said the Ebola epidemic could become a threat to global security and assigns 3,000 personnel from the country’s military to West Africa.
“This is an epidemic that is not just a threat to regional security. It’s a potential threat to global security, if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic. That has profound effects on all of us, even if we are not directly contracting the disease,” he said on Tuesday.
Obama ordered 3,000 troops to the region, including medics and corpsmen for treatment and training, engineers to help build treatment facilities and logistics specialists to assist in patient transportation.
“If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us,” said the US president.
The virus has so far killed 2,461 people, half of the 4,985 people infected, and the death toll has doubled in the past month, the World Health Organization Assistant Director-General Bruce Aylward has said.
Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, and sweat. It has killed around two-thirds of those it has infected over the last four decades.
There is currently no known cure for Ebola. Nigeria has also been hit by the epidemic in addition to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
HN/HN/IA
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