Ebola workers ask Congress for help

WASHINGTON - A top U.S. official outlined plans Wednesday for clinical trials of a possible Ebola vaccine in West Africa, as the global response to the outbreak took on added urgency with the disclosure of a new cluster of cases in Mali and reports that the death toll had surpassed 5,000.

Two studies of a U.S.-developed vaccine will begin in Liberia and Sierra Leone by January and if they go well, "we could know by the middle of 2015 whether or not we have an effective vaccine," Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, told the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The confirmation of long-anticipated vaccine studies came as the Senate panel began evaluating the Obama administration's request for $6.2 billion in emergency aid to fight Ebola.

"These resources are essential to stop the outbreak in Africa, and protect us," said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the number of infections is slowing in some parts of West Africa, the World Health Organization said cases still are surging in Sierra Leone. Worse, nearby Mali on Wednesday reported three deaths linked to Ebola and moved to track dozens of people who may have been exposed.

The spending request includes $4.64 billion in immediate spending to fight the epidemic and shore up U.S. preparedness. The domestic work includes such things as continuing training so far given to 250,000 nurses and other U.S. health workers on how to safely handle any cases, designating hospitals in every state capable of handling serious infectious diseases, and creating a national stockpile of protective equipment for health workers.

Shortly before the hearing started, Army Maj. Gen. Gary Voleski said the U.S. military's Ebola response in Liberia will top out at 3,000 troops, 1,000 fewer than had been planned.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D., Md.), who chairs the committee, said lawmakers would move rapidly on the request. "We need to contain the disease and we need to eradicate it," she said.

But some lawmakers questioned whether the money really will be enough to improve U.S. hospitals' preparedness for Ebola and other infectious diseases.

Others asked whether the Obama administration was taking enough security measures. "Why not take the extra conservative step" of quarantining returning health-care workers, as the Defense Department is doing, wondered Sen. Dan Coats (R., Ind.).

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said the military made an operational decision to cover a very large number of people at once, while the restrictions on returning health workers are customized depending on whether they're at high or low risk of infection.