UK to Establish Ebola Treatment Center in West Africa

The government of the United Kingdom (UK) has announced plans to construct a new 62-bed medical treatment center to treat victims of the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.

The new facility will include a 50-bed medical unit to treat victims of the disease, which will be staffed by international health workers and Sierra Leonean medical staff. In addition, the facility will hold a 12-bed treatment center for health workers, providing specialist care so that they can respond to the disease as safely and efficiently as possible. The first phase of the center is expected to be constructed and operational within eight weeks, and will be run initially by military engineers and medical staff.

The new treatment center is part of the significant UK support package for tackling Ebola in West Africa, and is closely coordinated with the United Nations. The package includes a commitment to lead and underwrite the provision of a total of 700 treatment beds. More than 200 of these beds are already in the delivery pipeline, with the rest to be delivered over the coming months, working with partners to provide and train the international staff and support needed to operate those beds.

“Bringing this outbreak under control needs significant international cooperation. The UK has committed to taking a leading role in Sierra Leone, a country we know well,” said Rt. Hon. UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, MP. “We will establish the beds and the operating framework, and encourage the international community to step forward to meet the international staffing requirement, in coordination with the UN.”

“Britain is at the forefront of the global effort to tackle this deadly outbreak, having already committed GBP 25 million of support, including frontline treatment and funding for medical research to develop a vaccine,” said UK International Development Secretary the Rt. Hon. Justine Greening, MP. “The scale of the problem requires the entire international community to do more to assist the affected countries, which is why the UK is working with the government of Sierra Leone to build a new medical treatment facility near their capital Freetown.”

“Ebola threatens thousands of people's lives across West Africa and could set back development many decades,” added Justin Forsyth, CEO of Save the Children (Fairfield, CT, USA), which is developing a long-term plan to manage and operate the new facility, once it commences operations. “The key to combating this epidemic is backing front line health workers and underpinning a fractured health system in Sierra Leone—without urgent action to assist medics, many more children and their families will suffer and die from this most appalling and tragic disease.”

Related Links:
Government of the United Kingdom
Save the Children