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U.S. to Deploy 3,000 Troops to Fight Ebola

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Sep 16, 2014 11:12 AM EDT

In an effort to maintain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the United States will deploy 3,000 troops. The troops will be going to Liberia, which is one of five nations affected by the virus.

"The goal here is to search American expertise, including our military, logistics and command and control expertise, to try and control this outbreak at its source in west Africa," Lisa Monaco, the White House counter-terrorism adviser, told MSNBC television on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

The U.S.'s plan is to build 17 treatment centers with 100 beds in each center where the infected people would ideally be secluded from the rest of the population to prevent transmission. The U.S. will also train about 500 healthcare workers each week for at least six months on how to properly treat infected patients without jeopardizing their own health. There will also be a military control center for coordination. President Barack Obama will reveal the full scope of the effort later during his visit to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

"This humanitarian intervention should serve as a firewall against a global security crisis that has the potential to reach American soil," Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations African affairs subcommittee stated according to the Associated Press reported by ABC News.

The U.S. is not the first country to send help. Cuba announced that it would send 165 people in October to Sierra Leone. China will reportedly send a mobile laboratory along with 59 medical staff members to Sierra Leona, where 115 Chinese health workers are already stationed.

Since the outbreak started in March, the virus has infected more than 4,500 people and killed more than 2,400. The other three affected nations are Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal.

The Obama administration has asked Congress for an additional $88 million that would be put toward fighting Ebola.

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