September 16, 2014, 3:55 pm ET by Tim Molloy
Saying that whole families are “waiting to die,” President Obama unveiled a U.S. response Tuesday to the Ebola epidemic that has claimed more than 2,400 African lives — a death toll projected to rise exponentially in the coming weeks.
Last week, in Ebola Outbreak, FRONTLINE reported on the intense difficulty of fighting the epidemic, which quickly infects entire families and communities through contact with bodily fluids.
Watch FRONTLINE’s Report From the Epicenter of the Ebola Epidemic
Obama said the chances of a U.S. outbreak were extremely low, citing new measures to identify infected travelers and to train doctors and nurses. But the situation is much worse in the hard-hit West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
“People are literally dying in the streets,” Obama said at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us.”
…(read more).
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