fbpx

UK Royal Navy Ship Brings Ebola Relief, Hope, To Sierra Leone

UK Royal Navy Ship Brings Ebola Relief, Hope, To Sierra Leone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H60imSM0XI

A U.K. Royal Navy ship carrying medical equipment, food and 32 pick-up trucks arrived Thursday in Sierra Leone to help deal with Ebola and provide support for treatment centers, BBC reports.

BBC Africa correspondent Andrew Harding said it would act as an offshore base for the aid effort, and described it as an “important moment” signalling the “beginnings of hope” in Freetown that a massive international aid effort was beginning to get under way.

The ship is one of the Royal Navy’s larger support vessels. Weighing 28,000 tonnes, it has its own onboard hospital, but it won’t be used to treat anyone exposed to the virus, BBC reports.

Doctors, nurses and military personnel are on board and the ship is docked in the capital, Freetown.

Ebola has killed nearly 5,000 people and infected more than 10,000 in West Africa since March.

The RFA Argus left Falmouth, Cornwall, Oct. 17 and is carrying three Royal Navy Merlin helicopters.

If any of the Royal Marines or crew on board become infected, they’ll be isolated, then moved to one of the clinics on the ground, according to the report.