Medical staff to be sent to Ebola region
By Jung Min-ho
The Korean government will recruit medical workers to be sent to Ebola-ridden West African countries, a health ministry official said Friday.
The move comes after President Park Geun-hye’s call late Thursday for Korea to join a global movement to help fight the epidemic, which has killed nearly 4,500 people in West Africa, predominantly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, since March.
At a biennial summit of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Milan, Park said, “Korea has decided to send medical workers to counter the rapid spread of the Ebola virus, in addition to providing humanitarian assistance.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Health and Welfare are cooperating to organize the team and further details will come after a special meeting Monday, a ministry official told The Korea Times.
“Officials from the two ministries and medical personnel from the private sector will be sent to Ebola-infected areas,” the official said.
The health ministry said in its statement that medical team members “will be trained thoroughly” before leaving for the affected areas, given the risk of infection.
“By working to stop the spread of the deadly disease there, it will ultimately protect Koreans too,” the statement read.
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. Yet requests for additional support have been pouring in, foreign affairs ministry spokesman, Noh Kwang-il, said.
The U.S. State Department and Seoul’s foreign affairs ministry reportedly discussed global issues at ASEM, including the Ebola epidemic. It appears that President Park then considered the urgency of the issue and made her decision to send medical assistance on the spot.
Experts believe that once infection affects a certain population, it becomes much more difficult to contain.
On Wednesday, world leaders declared the Ebola outbreak “the worst global health emergency” in years, vowing to implement further measures to combat the epidemic.
Meanwhile, the United Nations warned that the world has just 60 days to get Ebola under control, or face an “unprecedented situation for which we don’t have a plan.”
Speaking at the U.N. Security Council, U.N. deputy Ebola coordinator Anthony Banbury said, “The WHO advises that within 60 days we must ensure that 70 percent of infected people are in a care facility and 70 percent of burials are completed without causing further infection.”
According to the WHO, the Ebola virus is killing 70 percent of the people who contract the disease and by December, as many as 10,000 infections could be reported each week.