Obama: U.N. Will Mobilize Countries to Fight Ebola Outbreak

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=123256

Obama: U.N. Will Mobilize Countries to Fight Ebola Outbreak

By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2014 – In a speech this morning before the United Nations Security Council summit on foreign terrorist fighters, President Barack Obama likened this distant yet urgent problem to another remote but rising global threat -- the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa. Each problem demands immediate attention, he told the council, and said the United Nations would continue “mobilizing other countries to join us in making concrete commitments, significant commitments, to fight this outbreak and enhance our system of global health security for the long-term.”

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“As we speak,” Obama said, “America is deploying our doctors and scientists, supported by our military, to help contain the outbreak of Ebola and pursue new treatments.”

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Today at the Pentagon, Army Col. Steven Warren, a Defense Department spokesman, said about 100 personnel are on the ground now in Monrovia conducting activities in support of the joint forces command. The first flights carrying parts of a 25-bed field hospital that will be used to treat infected health care workers are expected to start arriving early next week. Once all the parts arrive, he added, the hospital should be set up within about 10 days.

Also helping with the effort in Liberia, Warren said, are three technical personnel working in laboratory facilities and the Defense Department has provided more than 10,000 Ebola test kits. Five military planners also are on the ground as part of a U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, Disaster Assistance Response Team. The 28-member DART team, deployed to West Africa to coordinate and prioritize the U.S. government’s outbreak response, also includes staff from USAID, CDC and the U.S. Forest Service.
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At the United Nations, Obama told the council that a broader effort is needed “to stop a disease that could kill hundreds of thousands, inflict horrific suffering, destabilize economies, and move rapidly across borders.”

Later this week, also in support of global health security, Obama and National Security Adviser Susan Rice will host a ministerial-level White House event with leaders from nations that have made commitments to an initiative launched in February called the Global Health Security Agenda, or GHSA. The GHSA is an international effort to accelerate progress toward developing capabilities to counter worldwide biological threats to security so a global health crisis in one area can’t expand to overwhelm national governments and destabilize nations and regions. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will participate in the White House event.