MOSCOW, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - US President Barack Obama is expected to announce Tuesday the country's expansion of resources to fight the spread of Ebola virus.
"This is an instance where we should be running toward the burning flames with our fireproof suits on," Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, the senior Republican on the Senate's Health Committee, said in a statement Monday. "This is an emergency. We need to recognize it, and we need to find and work with other countries in the world that recognize it," Alexander said.
Obama will offer help to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the construction of 17 Ebola treatment centers in the region, with about 1,700 treatment beds. Moreover, the new initiative includes training of 500 health care workers a week; setting up a joint command headquarters in the capital of Monrovia; providing home health care kits to hundreds of thousands of households, and carrying out home and community-based campaigns to train local populations on how to handle exposed patients, administration officials told Fox News on Monday.
The request is expected to be discussed Tuesday at the Senate's Armed Services Committee hearing with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.
The Ebola death toll in West Africa has passed 2,400 since the epidemic started in March, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Cases of the virus have been registered in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal.
The Ebola virus mortality rate currently stands at 53 percent. There is no officially approved medication for the disease and experts claim prevention is the only cure. Several countries, including Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan are currently working on developing Ebola vaccines.
