MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) — A team of US Air Force medical trainers has arrived to Liberia as a part of the Operation United Assistance, aimed to fight the spread of Ebola virus, the US Department of Defense reported.
"Currently, 79 non-US medical personnel are training with our 20-person Air Force training team on station," the spokesperson for the US Department of Defense Army Col. Steve Warren said Wednesday in a meeting with reporters at the Pentagon.
According to Col. Warren, the US trainers will train non-US medical personnel at the National Police Training Center in Monrovia, Liberia.
Col. Warren has also discussed the fact that US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had signed an order to place all US military service members, returning from Ebola-stricken West African countries into a 21-day quarantine-like monitoring program. The Joint Chiefs will review the program over the next 45 days.
"If adjustments need to be made, we can make them," he stated.
According to Col. Warren, 42, personnel are now under monitoring in Vicenza, Italy.
The United States began sending troops to West Africa in September and plans to have some 4,000 troops in the region. The initiative is part of the Operation United Assistance to provide logistics and assistance to local heath and military personnel, who are fighting Ebola.
The current Ebola epidemic started in southern Guinea in February and later spread to other West African countries, with several Ebola cases reported in Europe and in the United States.
According to WHO, a total of 13,703 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola virus disease have been reported up to the end of October 27. There have been 4,922 deaths.
