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Pentagon preps Ebola medical response team

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The Pentagon is training a 30-person medical response team designed to be deployed nationally in case anyone else in the country is diagnosed with Ebola.

Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said the team was formed based on a request from the Department of Health and Human Services.

"The team will consist of 20 critical care nurses, five doctors trained in infectious disease, and five trainers in infectious disease protocols," Kirby said.

The team, which will be trained in Fort Sam Houston in Texas by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, will help back up civilian doctors and won't be deployed outside the United States.

"Identifying, training, and preparing forces in advance of potential requests ensures that we can respond quickly and is analogous to how we prepare [Department of Defense] personnel in advance of other potential civil support missions, such as hurricane relief and wildland firefighting," Kirby said.

Following the Texas Ebola case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the creation of its own rapid response team that it intends to deploy quickly to any part of the U.S. that has another confirmed case of Ebola. Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.