A statement by the ECOWAS Commission on Sunday in Abuja noted that the meeting is at the instance of regional leaders, who at their Extraordinary Summit on Ebola in the Ghanaian capital on November 6, urged Member States to contribute military personnel and logistics to enhance response capacities, support the medical staff on the field and participate in the construction of additional treatment centres and ensure security.
It added that the defence chiefs would discuss the range of contributions, including pledges by Member States and deployment of military personnel to the most affected countries – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – in compliance with the decision of the regional leaders.
The CCDS Accra meeting, which comes on the heels of the deployment on 3rd December of the first batch of ECOWAS volunteer health workers to the three countries after training in Accra, will also consider the ECOWAS Standby Force’s Concept of Operations on the fight against Ebola.
Within the context of the regional response initiatives, the President of the ECOWAS Commission Mr. Kadré Desire Ouédraogo visited Togo on 4th December 2014 to meet with President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe on the implementation of the regional roadmap for the defeat of the Ebola epidemic in the region
President Ouédraogo and the Chairman of the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government, Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama have already paid solidarity visits to the three Member States worst-hit by the Ebola epidemic, which has claimed some 7,000 lives mainly in West Africa with severe implications on the region’s fragile health systems, economy and development efforts.
Since the latest Ebola outbreak in March 2014, the worst in recent history, ECOWAS Member States and Community institutions, in collaboration with development partners have stepped up prevention and containment measures with successful break of transmission in several countries.
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