US soldiers deployed in fight against Ebola heading home

By April 30, most of the 2,800 US soldiers deployed to West Africa as part of Operation United Assistance to fight the Ebola outbreak will be home, the Pentagon has announced.
"Given the success of the US response to the crisis, around 1,500 of them are already back to their duty stations and nearly all will return by April 30," Pentagon Spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement. "All have or will undergo established controlled monitoring procedures," he added.
Up to 10,000 US civilian personnel remain in the region, Kirby affirmed, and so the Department of Defense (DoD) "will leave behind important assets that can help health workers stem potential outbreaks in the future." DoD will also "identify 100 personnel who will maintain a continued presence in the region working to strengthen the disease preparedness and surveillance capacity of the national governments," as well as "build on a strong military partnership with the Armed Forces of Liberia to enhance their Ebola response efforts and provide disaster response training to the Government of Liberia," Kirby said. Operation United Assistance began in September 2014, and the Pentagon noted that since then, it has "delivered critical life-saving resources, constructed Ebola Treatment Units, trained hundreds of local and international healthcare workers, and provided logistical support to humanitarian and public health workers who provided care throughout West Africa." President Barack Obama is expected to hold a meeting with what the White House described as "Ebola response supporters" on Wednesday morning. He will be giving remarks on the next steps in the fight against the disease, the White House said in a statement.