Posted on 09/15/2014 10:23:03 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The United States government is sending thousands of military troops to the west African nation of Liberia as part of the Obama administration's Ebola virus-response strategy, the White House said late Monday night.
'U.S. Africa Command will set up a Joint Force Command headquartered in Monrovia, Liberia, to provide regional command and control support to U.S. military activities and facilitate coordination with U.S. government and international relief efforts,' a statement from the White House press office said.
'A general from U.S. Army Africa, the Army component of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), will lead this effort, which will involve an estimated 3,000 U.S. forces.'
Liberia is the hardest-hit of the four west African nations that have confirmed Ebola cases, accounting for more than one-half of the fatalities. The others are Sierra Leone, Guinea and, to a lesser extent, Nigeria.
Some of what America's armed personnel will do in Liberia is unclear. The White House said 'many' of them will be stationed at an 'intermediate staging base' where they will supervise the movement of medical staff, supplies and heavy equipment.
AFRICOM already warns its own personnel that they should 'avoid nonessential travel to Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.'
And the Defense Department is concerned, one Pentagon official told MailOnline, about the public perceptions aroused when American G.I.s patrol ground zero in a disease outbreak that could plunge three or more countries into chaos if it worsens significantly.
Combat soldiers and Marines 'will be on hand and ready for anything,' said the official, who has knowledge of some, but not all, of the Ebola-related planning. 'But hopefully it will be all logistics and hospital-building.'
'The president has ordered us to help, and we're eager to do it,' he said....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Generally they all flow downhill, or occasionally are pumped uphill and again flow downhill to the treatment facility, depending upon the terrain and situation.
It appears the ebolavirus can remain volitile after a month or so in dark places at ambient temperatures (20C - 250C) when caked and dried on surfaces such as textiles or even painted aluminum.
This means sewer pipe, collection systems, manholes, headworks, digesters, clarifiers, oxidation ponds, filters, and their effluent could also be contaminated, albeit in more dilute quantities. They generally won’t travel uphill, as they are bound in the blood cells and perhaps tissue cells of the infected fluids.
This might also explain how past outbreaks died out (by dilution of infectious cells, then re-entered into the population years later by chance.
At present, the only real eradication appears to be by incineration (>2500F) or acid attack with peroxide or bleach (1:5 dilution), or UV disinfection (which is difficult for untreated wastewater at nanometer resolutions).
It’s much easier to isolate those infected, then to try and adapt to the widespread contagion.
(It’s almost as if there is a moral to be learned here regarding contagions produced from sexual immorality.)
I suspect they are managing this situation in the same fashion they might respond to a natural disaster, by making standard health services available for things other than ebola, by constructing some field hospitals, by erecting off-the-shelf portable medical facilities, etc.
It might be a nice gesture, but I don’t see it solving a problem.
BTW, it’s a lot more than 3000+ Biosafety Level 4 suits.
There are only about 57 known BSL 4 facilites worldwide and about 16 in the US.
These folks are trying to treat BSL4 conditions as though they are BSL1 or BSL2 conditions at best.
It’s tough enough to get 3000 men to pee in the same general area on bivuoac, let alone try to establish a BSL4 facility to stop a pandemic????
If they want public attention to the problem, just bring back some of the infected medical staff and house them as domestic help in the homes of leading Democratic politicians and regulators. It’s for the children of future generations. /s
Thanks for the link.
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