By Evelyn T. Kpadeh
MONROVIA
The United States has earmarked $142 million to fight the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa, of which $65 million will be allocated to Liberia, where the virus killed more than 2,200 people.
"Our support is to focus on supporting the government of Liberia and its leadership and its strategies to build and staff more than 50 community care centers," Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told reporters following a meeting with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Shah said the funds will help the construction of Ebola treatment units, help expand critical trainings for healthcare workers and further support burial team to mobilize on a nationwide basis.
The USAID chief reiterated that the U.S. will remain committed to helping Liberia fight the virus.
"Our support will not stop here, our personnel, our medical our NGOs are committed to the future of Liberia," he said.
In recent months, Ebola – a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure – has killed more than 4,400 people in West Africa, including more than 2,200 in Liberia alone, according to the World Health Organization.
The virus has also appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other countries outside Africa.
Since the outbreak of the virus, the U.S. has pledged more than $400 million to fight the disease in West Africa.
Washington has also dispatched 300 military personnel to Liberia to help fight the deadly virus in the West African country.
A tropical fever that first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ebola can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.
It can also reportedly spread through contact with the body fluids of infected persons or of those who have died of the virus.
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