Saying the United States needs to make the Ebola epidemic "a national security priority," President Barack Obama announced Sunday on "Meet the Press" he plans to send additional U.S. military assets to Africa in an attempt to stem the outbreak.
Obama explained his reasoning for acting as quickly as possible:
"If we don't make that effort now, and this spreads, not just through Africa but other parts of the world, there's the prospect then that the virus mutates, it becomes more easily transmittable, and then it could be a serious danger to the United States."
The Washington Post reports Doctors Without Borders' international president, Joanne Liu, made the unprecedented request last week for military intervention to help contain the Ebola outbreak:
Only the military, Liu said in an interview Friday, has the rapid- deployment capability and chain-of-command structure necessary now.
“Because the response has been so slow, we now have to switch to a mass-casualty response,” she said.
