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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has met at the White House today with Dr. Kent Brantly, an American physician who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia. He recovered after treatment with an experimental drug.
The meeting took place before Obama left for Atlanta to visit the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He'll be announcing a stepped-up response to West Africa's Ebola crisis. It'll include sending 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region to supply medical and logistical support to health care systems.
Administration officials say the goals include training as many as 500 health care workers a week, and setting up 17 health care facilities in the region, with 100 beds each. There are also plans to provide home health care kits to hundreds of thousands of households. And there will be a campaign to train local populations on how to handle exposed patients.
House Speaker John Boehner (BAY'-nur) says he's surprised the administration didn't act more quickly against the Ebola threat.
But Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who heads the African affairs subcommittee, says the effort should provide a "firewall against a global security crisis."
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APPHOTO WX102: FILE - In this Aug. 21, 2014 file photo, ebola victim Dr. Kent Brantly, right, hugs a member of the medical staff that treated him, after being released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Brantly is scheduled to testify before a Senate panel on the Ebola crisis Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) (21 Aug 2014)
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