US Links to Bio-Warfare Labs in Ebola Zone: Scholar

NEW YORK, October 8 (RIA Novosti) – The United States may be behind the deadly Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone, two West African countries known to host American biological warfare laboratories, a University of Illinois College of Law scholar told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

"US government agencies have a long history of carrying out allegedly defensive biological warfare research at labs in Liberia and Sierra Leone. This includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is now the point agency for managing the Ebola spill-over into the US," Prof. Francis Boyle said.

"Why has the Obama administration dispatched troops to Liberia when they have no training to provide medical treatment to dying Africans? How did Zaire/Ebola get to West Africa from about 3,500km away from where it was first identified in 1976?"

The US has pledged as many as 4,000 troops to the region. Thomas Duncan, 42, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the US, died on Wednesday. He caught the virus in his native Liberia and traveled to see relatives in the US.

"Why is the CDC not better-prepared for this emergency after the US government spent about $70 billion since the anthrax attacks of October 2001 to prepare for this exact contingency?" Boyle said.

More than 3,860 people have died in the worst Ebola outbreak in history and the first to have occurred in West Africa. It began in southern Guinea in February and spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The World health Organization (WHO) says it could infect some 20,000 people before it is brought under control.