Whatever happened to the civilian contractors we sent to Africa to combat the EBOLA “crisis”?

Nearly 12 months since the first U.S. personnel deployed to West Africa to fight Ebola, the U.S. has marked important milestones in response to the epidemic. In keeping with the President’s charge and keeping Ebola as a national security priority, the U.S. built, coordinated, and led an international response—involving thousands of personnel, both U.S. and international, civilian, and military—to fight the disease at its source.

According to the State Department the United States sent more than 3,000 DOD, CDC, USAID, and other U.S. health workers to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to assist with response efforts, as part of a 10,000-person U.S.-backed civilian response.

The U.S. government has:

• Constructed 15 Ebola treatment units in the region
• Provided more than 400 metric tons of personal protective equipment and other medical and relief supplies
• Operated more than 190 burial teams in the region
• Conducted aggressive contact tracing to identify chains of transmission
• Trained health care workers and conducted community outreach
• Worked with international partners to identify travelers who may have Ebola before they leave the region

Today, the U.S. has enhanced preparedness to encounter Ebola on our shores, establishing comprehensive measures to screen and detect the disease in travelers, while strengthening our capacity to diagnose, isolate, and treat any patients safely. The response showcased American leadership at its finest on the world stage, just as we came together as a nation to fortify our domestic resilience in the face of understandable apprehension.