From WSJ

With risks growing that Ebola could flare on foreign shores, the U.S. is calling for nations to dispatch doctors and nurses to West Africa, where thousands of lives are on the line. Few have heeded the call, but one country has responded in strength: Cuba.

In the weeks since U.S. President Barack Obama sent the first of nearly 4,000 troops to West Africa, the struggle to quell Ebola has created odd bedfellows. Perhaps none is quite so odd as the sight of Cuban doctors joining forces with the U.S. military to combat Ebola in West Africa. Cuba has long had an antagonistic relationship with its northern neighbor, the U.S.

The U.S. is stepping up the training of health workers to fight Ebola. WSJ’s Betsy McKay reports on the News Hub with Simon Constable. Photo: AP

Aspiring global heavyweights China, India and Russia have done plenty of business in Africa, but their contributions to fighting the Ebola epidemic have been underwhelming thus far. And nations with some of the world’s most advanced health-care systems have come too late with too little to the crisis, said leaders from Ebola-affected countries.

On Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for “at least a 20-fold surge in assistance” that includes “trained medical personnel.”

“The international response was slow,” said Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. On Thursday, she pleaded for more medical personnel, speaking from the capital Monrovia to a World Bank Ebola conference in Washington. “More than ever, we need qualified and dedicated staff to join the fight against Ebola.”

Cuba has answered that call. It has sent 165 health workers to hard-hit Sierra Leone, a disproportionately large number for a tiny island nation of 11 million people. They join cadres of medical workers in West Africa from several nations who are under the auspices of aid groups. Doctors Without Borders says it has about 250 international staff in the region and nearly 3,000 working on Ebola there overall.

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