South Korea will provide an additional US$5 million in assistance to Ebola-hit West Africa in line with its move to send the first batch of 10 medical personnel to Sierra Leone this weekend, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.
The foreign ministry said that the decision was made in tandem with its planned dispatch of the team of four doctors and six nurses slated for Saturday. Seoul has so far provided $5.6 million to global efforts to fight the Ebola virus.
Seoul will first send the team to Worcester, north of London, where they will receive safety education from Dec. 15-20.
They will then leave for Sierra Leone a day later and begin full-fledged work on Dec. 29 for four weeks at an Ebola clinic being built by Britain in Goderich, near the capital of Freetown, after weeklong on-the-job training there.
The foreign ministry said it will also send a three-member team of government officials to support the work of the medical personnel to Sierra Leone next week.
South Korea plans to dispatch a total of 30 medical workers in three batches to the Ebola clinic. The second batch of medical workers is expected to leave Seoul on Jan. 10 and the remainder will likely be sent on Feb. 7, the ministry added.
Seoul's decision came after Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se held a meeting with officials from related government ministries and civilian experts on the dispatch of medical workers.
"It is meaningful that Seoul is able to play an active role for the international community that stands at a crisis due to the contagious disease," Yun said.
In October, South Korean President Park Geun-hye announced the plan to send a group of doctors and nurses there. Ebola is estimated to have killed more than 6,000 people since December last year.
The government said that if South Korean medical workers are infected with the virus, they will be transported to hospitals in Europe via civilian and military aircraft run by the European Union.
The idea of transporting infected medical workers to Seoul has been dismissed due to safety concerns and the long flight time, the ministry said.
The 10 medical workers will be quarantined in South Korea for 21 days, the incubation period of the virus, when they return home.
Seoul has said that the team of volunteer medical workers was picked based on their level of expertise, adding that a higher-than-expected number of medical personnel has applied. (Yonhap)