TheCable

United States president, Barack Obama, has finally responded to the long plea of aid in Africa on Ebola, his government announcing its intention to send a troop of 3,000 people to help tackle Ebola in Liberia.

US Officials told reporters that the plan, Obama will unveil himself, is strategized to include the building of 17 treatment centres, training of thousands of healthcare workers and the establishment of a military control centre for coordination.

Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), who has since highlighted the gravity of the outbreak in Liberia by saying there is not a single bed available for Ebola patients in the entire country, spoke of the need for health workers to the tune of 10,000.

Obama had earlier requested for $88m from congress to tackle the outbreak, $58m of which would go into speeding up the production of the experimental serum, Zmapp, which saved two American citizens.

US says the plan was to have a 100 beds in every of the 17 centres to be built as soon as possible.With respect to training, the US Military personnel would be training as any as 500 healthcare workers per week for a period of six months or more.

According to the Reuters, the US Department of Defence had requested to reallocate $500m in funds from fiscal 2014 to help cover the costs of the humanitarian mission.

Meanwhile, the United Nations says it would need $1bn to tackle the deadly outbreak.

David Nabarro, who spoke on behalf of the World Health Organisation (WHO), described the health crisis as “unparalleled in modern times”.