Obama to bring back US troops fighting Ebola in West Africa

US President Barack Obama will bring back American troops deployed in West Africa to fight the deadly Ebola disease, ending a 10-month mission.
Obama is scheduled to announce tomorrow his plans to bring all but 100 troops sent to West Africa to support efforts to battle the Ebola epidemic, the White House said.
Out of 2,800 American troops that were deployed in the West Africa, 1,500 have already returned.
The move was welcomed by the top officials, including the Pentagon and USIAD Administrator Raj Shah.
"To be sure, our tasks are far from complete; we will keep working to meet this challenge until there are zero cases in West Africa and our domestic infrastructure is fully completed," the White House said.

"Our focus now turns to consolidating that substantial progress as America tomorrow marks the next phase of our response," the White House said.

"We have gone from over 1,000 new suspected, probable, and confirmed Ebola cases a week in October, to roughly 150 new confirmed weekly cases in the most recent reports," it said.
There have been more than 22,000 reported confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola since the outbreak began, with almost 8,800 known deaths.
"Liberia has reported only a handful of new cases per week, a drop of well over 90 per cent. Significant declines also have been reported in Sierra Leone from the epidemic's peak," the White House said.

"At the height of the epidemic, there were 2,800 DoD personnel deployed to West Africa. Given the success of the US response to the crisis, the majority of Department of Defence personnel in West Africa will now return home," the Pentagon Press Secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, said.
"Today, around 1,500 of them are already back to their duty stations and nearly all will return by April 30. All personnel have or will undergo established controlled monitoring procedures," he said.
To support the 10,000 civilian responders that remain on the ground in West Africa, the Department of Defence (DoD) will leave behind important assets that can help health workers stem potential outbreaks in the future, Kirby said.

In addition, DoD will 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, he said.
"Just 10 months since the first US government personnel deployed, we have delivered extraordinary results. Across West Africa, cases are down by 80 per cent.In Liberia-once the heart of the epidemic-we've helped cut down new cases from more than 30 a day to as few as one or two," Shah said.
"Yet, we know that our work is far from over. Even as we have dramatically slowed the rate of new cases, USAID's efforts will not cease until we get to zero," Shah said.