Operation United Assistance

Operation United Assistance is a 2014 United States military mission to help combat the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, including the part of the epidemic occurring in Liberia. The 101st Airborne Division headquarters was responsible for leading the mission.

The United States Africa Command, working through United States Army Africa, has designated the Army's response to the Ebola epidemic as Operation United Assistance. Up to 4,000 U.S. Army troops are planned as part of an aid mission there, starting September 2014. Initially, the overall plan was to build 17 hospitals around the country of Liberia, each with 100-bed capacity. However, in late November 2014 this was reduced to 10 treatment centers with 50 beds each. By early January 2015, 8 out of 10 centers were completed. This type of hospital is called an Ebola Treatment Unit or ETU for short. The military is also working with USAID.

A 25-bed hospital planned for health workers staffed by U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps officers was opened November 7, 2014 near Monrovia.

By the end of September 2014 150 military personnel were helping USAID in the capital, Monrovia. Special isolation units for the C-17 Globemaster aircraft are being worked on in late 2014 to support medical evacuation of personnel should they be infected. The current evacuation aircraft can only carry one patient at time, while the isolation unit is being designed to support up to 15.

By early October there about 400 troops were in Liberia. This included soldiers from an Engineering Battalion, to help construct buildings for the operation. Initial work included transporting supplies to Liberia, and scouting out sites to build the treatment centers. By December 2014, there were three thousand servicemembers deployed for the operation; by February 2015, the number of servicemembers dropped to around thirteen hundred. In early April 2015, 48th Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Brigade deployed to Liberia to oversee the draw down of the operation.

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