Greening to meet troops tackling Ebola in Sierra Leone

International Development Secretary Justine Greening is to visit an Ebola training academy and a treatment facility which is being built in Sierra Leone to help those infected with the virus.

Greening will fly out from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire with around 100 British troops from the Royal Army Medical Corps.

The UK is leading the international response to the disease in the country, and has pledged a £125m aid package including support for 700 treatment beds.

The medics deploying today will staff an Ebola Training Academy alongside around 90 personnel from 22 Field Hospital who left for Sierra Leone last week.

Ms Greening will visit the academy, as well as the site of a 92 bed treatment facility in Kerry Town which is in the final stages of being constructed.

She said: "Halting the disease in West Africa is the most effective way of preventing Ebola infecting people here in the UK.

"That is why we are providing 700 treatment beds in Sierra Leone, sending vital supplies such as chlorine and protective clothing, and training hundreds of health workers.

"I look forward to seeing for myself how British Army medics and engineers, as well as our humanitarian and health workers, are spearheading the UK's efforts to contain and ultimately defeat Ebola."