- Sun Apr 12, 2015 11:35 am
#56594
MONROVIA, Liberia — As bodies littered the streets and the sick lay dying in front of overwhelmed clinics last year, President Obama ordered the largest American intervention ever in a global health crisis, hoping to stem the deadliest Ebola epidemic in history.
But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars and deploying nearly 3,000 troops to build Ebola treatment centers, the United States ended up creating facilities that have largely sat empty: Only 28 Ebola patients have been treated at the 11 treatment units built by the United States military, American officials now say.
Nine centers have never had a single Ebola patient. The United States has spent $1.4 billion on its Ebola mission in West Africa, with most of it going to Liberia. Deploying the military cost $360 million, not including the construction, staffing and operating expenses at the treatment centers it built. Ongoing costs are expected to exceed $3 billion by years end with most of the money being spent unaccounted for.
