The US cut its number of troops to be sent to Liberia from 4,000 to 3,000 according to General Gary Volesky who is leading the US military mission to fight Ebola in West Africa.
"We will top out at 3,000 troops in December, the most we plan to bring into Liberia," noted Volesky.
"There is a lot of capacity here that we didn't know about before," Volesky said to reporters Wednesday. He noted that the army is supporting federal agencies on Ebola treatment units and training healthcare workers.
Meanwhile, during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee today Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Heather Higginbottom added, "The State and USAID [United States Agency for International Development] strategy to eradicate Ebola in West Africa rests upon four pillars: controlling the epidemic, managing the secondary consequences of the outbreak, building coherent leadership and operations, and ensuring global health security." She then acknowledged that the epidemic is not yet controlled and the number of cases will continue to grow. The State Department and USAID therefore jointly requested congress to approve USD 2.9 billion to end the epidemic.
5,160 people have been killed by this outbreak of Ebola according to the World Health Organization Wednesday (WHO).