US Military Planes Deliver More Marines Into Ebola Hot Zone; African Leaders Plead For Help
Source: Associated Press
Associated Press Oct. 9, 2014 | 6:11 p.m. EDT + More
By JONATHAN PAYE-LAYLEH AND CIARAN GILES, Associated Press
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) Six U.S. military planes arrived in the Ebola hot zone Thursday with more Marines, as West Africa's leaders pleaded for the world's help in dealing with "a tragedy unforeseen in modern times."
"Our people are dying," Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma lamented by videoconference at a World Bank meeting in Washington. He said other countries are not responding fast enough while children are orphaned and infected doctors and nurses are lost to the disease.
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The fleet of planes that landed outside the Liberian capital of Monrovia consisted of four MV-22 Ospreys and two KC-130s. The 100 additional Marines bring to just over 300 the total number of American troops in the country, said Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, the commander leading the U.S. response.
Williams joined the American ambassador to Liberia, Deborah Malac, at the airport to greet the aircraft.
As vehicles unloaded boxes of equipment wrapped in green-and-black cloth, the Marines formed a line on the tarmac and had their temperatures checked by Liberian health workers.
Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2014/10/09/us-military-aircraft-arriving-in-liberia
Sopkoviak
(357 posts)By Liberian health workers?
Liberian health workers who may have been exposed to Ebola working with infected Liberians?
BULL SHIT!
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)welcome party needs to be fired or relieved of command. Liberia is a hot zone for disease--the Marines aren't the ones bringing it.
ballyhoo
(2,060 posts)YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)Sopkoviak
(357 posts)Ramstein/Landstuhl Regional Medical Center where my granddaughter is an Air Force nurse.
I haven't been able to Skype her for a few days so she could either be on a flight or on standby at the hospital.
Last time I did talk to her she mentioned that the local German authorities were a bit uneasy about the prospects.
Frankly this has me more concerned than when she was flying in and out of Afghanistan or Iraq. At least then she couldn't tell me about it until they had returned to base, and she did carry a side arm while in a combat zone.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)You see where I'm going with this don't you? We won't be able to contain the spread what-so-ever.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)have them rely on people already saying they need help controlling a communicable disease and further burden them, would we?
Would seem bad form, except...
was this just to get them acclimated to being touched by people from this region? A behavioral inducement, sort of?
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)it could be waived for our Marines, since they're pretty fucking lucky we're helping at all. But how ridiculous is it if they get infected right on the tarmac? That Major General allowed this? He doesn't have my confidence. No unnecessary people should be getting near our military for any reason, let alone health workers who deal with the Liberian public.
840high
(17,196 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)They can't just walk around in a bubble, but, in theory, these are not "unnecessary" people, but trained aid workers. I understand the fear, but they have to work together, so perhaps this is a way to force that to begin.
It does seem like extraordinarily high risk, but there is little way to set your self apart in such a situation, I suspect, and it is very likely to get worse.
Roselma
(540 posts)stationed at Indian Head, Maryland. If this group of Marines is CBIRF, you can be assured that they are not only properly supplied, but they spend a tremendous amount of time training to prepare for this type of an outbreak. They aren't merely Marines who know how to use detection equipment and wear protective gear, they actually know what they're doing. I don't have any comment or understanding of their temperatures being taken, but I'm assuming those temps will be recorded just like they are for medical personnel, and those temps will be the baseline for daily fever checks just as are done for medical personnel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Biological_Incident_Response_Force