Ebola mission includes risk of malaria for troops

http://www.navytimes.com/article/20140925/NEWS08/309250082/Ebola-mission-includes-risk-malaria-troops

Ebola mission includes risk of malaria for troops
Sep. 25, 2014 - 07:54PM |By Patricia Kime
Staff writer

U.S. troops are trickling in to Liberia to set the stage for a massive deployment to West Africa to help contain the Ebola epidemic. On Thursday, 15 sailors from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 based in Djibouti prepared to join roughly 100 U.S. military personnel already in the Liberian capital of Monrovia, including mission commander Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, chief of U.S. Army forces in Africa, to establish a Joint Force Command headquarters and build infrastructure for the effort, called Operation United Assistance.
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In Liberia, the U.S. military will focus on logistical support for the massive effort to treat victims of the dangerous disease. American troops also will help train civilian medical personnel and build 17 100-bed treatment centers, DoD officials have said. At least three Air Force C-17s have brought in gear ranging from heavy equipment to supplies, and personnel, including engineers and airfield specialists.

A handful of technical personnel have been in the region since earlier this summer, working in laboratory facilities and providing more than 10,000 Ebola test kits. Military planners also are on the ground as part of a U.S. Agency for International Development Disaster Assistance Response Team.
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And there is the possibility of contracting other tropical diseases endemic to the region, including malaria, dengue, the Chikungunya virus — a painful but not fatal disease that causes fever and excruciating joint pain — and more, said Dr. Remington Nevin, a tropical disease specialist and former Army physician conducting research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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As recently as 2003, when a contingency of 225 Marines deployed to Liberia for a few days, 35 percent developed malaria and of those, more than half had to be evacuated to an advanced medical treatment facility.
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