'20 staff to be sent to fight Ebola'

By Jung Min-ho

About 20 medical staff will be sent to Ebola-ridden West African countries in November, said Health and Welfare Minister Moon Hyung-pyo on Tuesday.

Moon told reporters, “The first team will be dispatched in late November and they will stay there probably until the end of January next year.”

The ministry is planning to recruit about 10 doctors from the private sector and 10 medical staffers from the military and the government, he said.

The health ministry and the Ministry of National Defense will determine their destinations, how many teams to be formed with the staff and how long each team will stay there this week.

Then, a recruitment notice for private doctor spots will be made public sometime next week.

“There will be many volunteers,” the minister told reporters. “This will be very meaningful from a humanitarian perspective.”

He said that some doctors have already contacted the ministry and expressed their will to join the global movement to help fight the epidemic, which has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa, predominantly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, since March.

“At their request, however, their identification will not be revealed,” he said.

Once recruited, he added, medical staff will be trained thoroughly before leaving for the affected areas, given the risk of infection.

The move comes after President Park Geun-hye’s call last week.

Korea has so far pledged $5.6 million to help contain the spread of Ebola through the U.N., the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and other organizations.

Experts believe that once infection affects a certain population, it becomes much more difficult to contain.

In a recent “letter to the world” broadcast on the BBC, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said the whole world has a stake in the fight against Ebola, noting the disease “respects no borders.”