White House Says United States Is Prepared to Stop Spread of Ebola

WASHINGTON - The United States Army announced on Friday that it will more than double the number of soldiers it is sending to West Africa, to 3,200, to help contain the Ebola virus as White House officials prepared to confront concerns about the chaotic response to the disease's arrival in the United States.

President Obama's senior homeland security adviser and other top White House officials will hold an on-camera briefing at the White House late Wednesday afternoon, officials said. The briefing comes amid reports that a series of mistakes were made when Thomas E. Duncan, a Liberian man, arrived in Texas and was later told he had Ebola.

Television images from Monrovia, Liberia and Dallas during the last several days have raised new questions about the adequacy of the American response on both continents.

In Liberia, the help Mr. Obama promised several weeks ago has been slow to arrive, and logistical glitches have prevented the United States military from being able to quickly set up as many hospitals and treatment centers as is necessary to halt the virus ravaging that country.

And in Dallas, missteps at the hospital where Mr. Duncan is being treated have incited fear in that community about the danger of the virus spreading. Local, federal and state officials sought to coordinate efforts to remove hazardous waste from Mr. Duncan's apartment and continued to search for people who might have had contact with him.

Here, doctors at Howard University Hospital announced that they have admitted a patient with Ebola-like symptoms. A spokesman for the city's health department stressed in a statement that no patient in any of the city's hospitals have been confirmed to have the virus.

United States officials have spent the last several weeks repeatedly offering calm assurances that the American health system was well equipped to seamlessly handle the Ebola virus if it arrived on the country's shores. White House officials had expressed confidence in medical experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Graphic: What Are the Chances Ebola Will Spread in the United States?

In an interview on Thursday, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C., said he recognized that people in the United States are increasingly anxious about how the virus is able to arrive here from affected countries in Africa. But he said a more aggressive screening of passengers as they arrive at airports in the United States is not a viable solution.

'We wish we had a situation where we could say the risk is zero,' he said. 'But until we stop the outbreak in Africa, there is no way we can say that.'

The announcement from the military is aimed at doing just that. In a briefing with reporters on Friday, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the total United States military presence in West Africa could rise to as high as 4,000, more than the 3,000 that Mr. Obama announced several weeks ago.

On Tuesday, the Army announced the deployment of 1,400 soldiers to West Africa. On Thursday, it announced the deployment of an additional 1,800 soldiers, bringing the total for just the Army up to 3,200.

'All of these efforts are laying the groundwork for what will prove to be a significant increase in our troop presence and operational tempo on the ground in West Africa,' Mr. Kirby said at the Pentagon briefing. 'We project that there could be nearly 4,000 troops deployed in support of this mission, but we're obviously assessing the requirements on a daily basis.'

from Google News http://#

via IFTTT

Tweet