Barack Obama is set to bring back nearly all of the 1,300 US troops deployed in west Africa to fight the Ebola epidemic, the White House has announced.
Obama – who was criticised for a slow reponse to the Ebola outbreak, will hold a White House event to showcase how US leadership helped stem the epidemic, which has killed almost 9,000 people, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The number of new cases each week had dropped to about 150 in recent reports, down from more than 1,000 new cases per week in October, the White House said, and by 30 April most US troops would be withdrawn.
“We are encouraged by the declining number of new Ebola cases in west Africa but remain concerned about a recent increase in cases in Guinea and an inability to further reduce case counts in Sierra Leone,” said a White House statement.
“Moreover, given that a single case can lead to flare-ups of the virus, we must not lose focus.”
About 100 US military personnel would remain in west Africa to help, the Obama administration said.
At the height of the epidemic about 2,800 US military personnel were deployed in west Africa. Troops built 10 Ebola treatment units and a medical unit to treat infected healthcare workers.
At least 10 people are known to have been treated for Ebola in the United States, four of them diagnosed with the disease on US soil. Only two people are known to have contracted the virus in the United States – both of them nurses who treated an Ebola patient from Liberia who became sick and died in Dallas.
After that incident, which happened during the US midterm election campaign, Obama named former White House adviser Ron Klain to co-ordinate government activities. Klain’s job is slated to wrap up this week.
Obama secured more than $5.4bn from Congress to fight the disease in west Africa and at home. Some of those funds are being used to support the development of Ebola vaccines and therapeutic drugs.
“This money will still be used as we do the hard work of trying to get to zero [Ebola cases] and continue to invest in domestic preparedness for this and other highly infectious diseases,” an administration official said, speaking on background.
The government has worked to train US hospital workers to detect and handle Ebola cases, and ramped up screening of people returning from countries where Ebola raged.
About 7,700 people returning from Ebola-afflicted countries were screened at US airports and were required to watch for symptoms and report to health authorities for 21 days.