Ebola to deploy 192 medical personnel

Members of the Economic Community of West African States have pledged to deploy, over the next six months, 192 military medical personnel to strengthen the fight against the Ebola epidemic in the region’s most affected countries.

 Rising from a meeting of the Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff in Accra on Monday,  Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo pledged to contribute eight military personnel each, including two medical doctors and six other health officers to be rotated every two months.
 The pledge translated to 24 medical personnel per country and 192 in total.

 For effective and timely deployment, the Committee urged ECOWAS to put in place necessary financial and logistics support, according to a statement from the Commission on Tuesday.
During the meeting, the regional defence chiefs were updated on the ECOWAS response initiatives against Ebola. They also listened to presentations by the West African Health Organization which highlighted the security and socio-economic impacts of the epidemic on the region, and discussed the ECOWAS Plan for the deployment of military medical personnel to the most affected countries.
In the discussions that followed the presentations, the defence chiefs underscored the need for ECOWAS and Member States to own the process of the fight against the Ebola outbreak in the region.
The meeting also discussed the need for solidarity with affected countries and for the military to join the global fight against Ebola through deployment of military medical personnel as well as respect and compliance with existing coordinating structures and mechanisms in the affected Member-States.
Closing the meeting, the CCDS Chairman and Ghana’s Chief of Defence Staff, Vice Admiral Matthew Quashie, expressed appreciation to Member-States and encouraged them to redeem their pledges.