#News: Bill Clinton: We Must Do 'Whatever It Takes' To Fight Ebola

[HuffingtonPost]

(Updates with departure of aid flight, details of cargo; adds  byline; dateline previously WASHINGTON)                

By Caren Bohan and Sharon Begley                

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) - New initiatives  from the United States, Britain, France and other countries to  help fight the Ebola epidemic that has been spreading  exponentially in West Africa marked a "good beginning," former  President Bill Clinton said on Saturday, but said the world will  need to do more.                

"We're still a little behind the curve but we're getting  there," Clinton told reporters in a conference call, a day  before his charity, the Clinton Global Initiative, was set to  begin its 10th annual meeting in New York.                

A chartered 747 jet, carrying the largest single shipment of  aid to the Ebola zone to date and coordinated by CGI and other  U.S. aid organizations, departed New York's John F. Kennedy  International Airport on Saturday afternoon bound for West  Africa.                

After refueling in Cape Verde, the Kalitta Air charter is  scheduled to land in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Sunday morning.                

The shipment of 170 pallets containing gloves, gowns and  other protective equipment for medical workers will be met by  government officials and local aid workers, and distributed to  some 200 healthcare facilities on Monday, said Thomas Tighe,  chief executive of the California-based aid group Direct Relief,  which collected the 100 tons of emergency medical aid.                

Because Sierra Leone on Friday started a three-day  government-ordered lockdown that prohibits most people from  leaving their homes as health workers and others go door-to-door  to educate people about Ebola and isolate the sick, the  volunteers who will off-load the Direct Relief supplies have  been staying at the airport for days.                

The plane will continue on to Monrovia, Liberia, to deliver  the rest of its cargo: 2.8 million gloves, 170,000 protective  gowns, 120,000 masks, 40,000 liters of pre-mixed oral hydration  solution, and 9.8 million doses of medications. The protective  equipment can supply 280 healthcare workers treating Ebola  patients for one year.                

Since the outbreak was detected in March, Ebola has infected  at least 5,357 people, according to the World Health  Organization, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and  killed an estimated 2,630. It has also spread to Senegal and  Nigeria.                

In a major expansion of the U.S. effort against Ebola,  President Barack Obama this week announced that the United  States would send 3,000 troops to West Africa help tackle the  outbreak, including a major deployment in Liberia.                

"We're going to have to do whatever it takes to contain the  epidemic," Clinton said.                

"It's a sprawling, growing thing. But at least they're  putting the infrastructure in and have shown a willingness to  put some money behind it, and I think it's a good beginning."                

In a brief ceremony before the 747 taxied down the runway at  JFK, Liberia's minister of foreign affairs, Augustine Kpehe  Ngafuan, said the aid shipment "will translate into saving  lives." He added, "We have been able to place men on the moon.  Let us do a similar thing for mankind. I appeal to the  international community."     (Reporting by Caren Bohan and Sharon Begley; Editing by Leslie  Adler)
Source: huffingtonPost