MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, have spent a total of 39 million euro ($41.8 million) on a five-month mission to West Africa to help treat people with Ebola-like symptoms, during which no patients tested positive for the deadly virus, an army spokesperson said.
"It is pretty bizarre that the ministry falsely told the parliament on more than one occasion that it didn't have the numbers. What do they want to hide?" Omid Nouripour, a Green Party parliamentarian, told told the German Bild newspaper, commenting on the attempts by the German Defense Ministry to cover up the cost of the mission.
The mission to fight the Ebola outbreak in Liberia was a cooperative effort between the German military and the German Red Cross, which began in November 2014 and ended at the beginning of March 2015.
The most recent Ebola outbreak began in Guinea in December 2013 and spread to neighboring West African countries, claiming the lives of over 11,000 people, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.
Liberia, which suffered nearly 5,000 deaths from the deadly virus, has been one of the countries most affected by outbreak.