The US military is planning to pull out most troops in Ebola hit regions in West Africa that were deployed to help stem the outbreak of the deadly virus, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, ending a 5 month mission.
Troops that at a point reached 2 800 has been scaled back to about 1 300 troops and "nearly all of them will come back by 30 April," Pentagon spokesperson, Rear Admiral John Kirby mentioned in a statement. This development came as the epidemic has begun to recede.
President Barack Obama will on Wednesday spread out a next phase in fighting the disease.
"We have bent the curve of the epidemic and placed it on a much improved trajectory," the White House stated.
A small team of about 100 US troops will stay back in the region to strengthen "disease preparedness and surveillance capacity" of local governments, Kirby stated.
At the peak of the Ebola virus outbreak, President Barack Obama approved plans in September, 2014 for more than 3 000 troops to head to Liberia and Senegal. However, the full contingent never had to be deployed in, as the tide began to turn in the effort to contain the virus.
The US troops, most of whom were stationed in Liberia, built Ebola treatment units, trained health workers, provided logistical support for aid agencies and built labs to test blood samples, Kirby stated.
When an American citizen who traveled to Liberia died from the deadly virus last year, public fears increased in the United States and Washington officials scrambled to take measures to prevent any possible outbreak.
Even-though, US troops in Senegal and Liberia had no contact with infected patients, the Pentagon placed all military personnel returning from West Africa in temporary quarantine as a precautionary measure. Officials have so far not detected the deadly virus in any US soldier that worked in West Africa.
About 9 000 people have died from Ebola virus since the outbreak started 13 months ago, with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone the hardest hit.
A collective international effort has been underway to rid the three West African nations of the Ebola virus, and a drop in new infected cases had sparked hopes that the worst was over.
However, the weekly number of new Ebola cases recorded in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone rose in the last week of January, marking the first increase in 2015, the World Health Organisation stated last week.
During the last 7 days leading up to February 1, 124 new cases were recorded across the three west African countries that have the vast majority of infections.
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