US troops get four-hour Ebola training before heading to W Africa

The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) has been instructing soldiers at Fort Campbell and Fort Bragg on Ebola protocols, The Daily Beast reports.
 
A team of two can train as many as 50 soldiers over a four-hour time frame, USAMRIID told the online magazine.
 
The first 500 soldiers arriving in Liberia have been staying in hotels and government facilities while the US military sets up official bases on the ground, the report said. Civilians are also staying at the hotels.
 
According to USA Today, US troops are told that the Ebola virus "basically causes your body to eat itself from the inside out” and that "the environment we're going into is drastically different [from Afghanistan]... the stuff that can kill you is much worse."
 
President Barack Obama has authorized the Pentagon to deploy National Guard and reserve forces to West Africa to fight the spread of the deadly disease. Under the president’s order, over 4,000 American troops could be sent to West Africa.
 
The US military commander in Liberia, Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, has said only specially-trained troops would come in direct contact with the virus.
 
He insisted that the likelihood of US soldiers contracting the virus is minimal."I’m not an epidemiologist, but it’s been shown that this disease is most manifest when handling bodily fluid — blood, other sorts of fluids, and there is no plan right now for US soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to do that.”
 
The Pentagon estimates that operations in West Africa could last a year or more.
 
So far three cases of Ebola have been diagnosed in the United States and dozens of people are being monitored.
 
On Saturday, Obama urged Americans not to give in to "hysteria" about the spread of the deadly virus.
 
The latest outbreak has taken more than 4,500 lives, most of them in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.