Part of S. Korean Ebola team set to return home

SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Yonhap) -- Some members of a South Korean advance Ebola response team will return home later Friday after visiting Britain and Sierra Leone following their field study on a future dispatch of medical personnel to the African country, the foreign ministry said.

Seven out of the 12-member team of government officials and civilian experts will fly into Seoul from Britain later in the day after evaluating the situation in the West African country. They visited a British Ebola clinic center being built in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, to which Seoul's medical workers will be sent.

The remainder of the team has visited Britain to discuss safety measures for Korean doctors and nurses as well as the wording of a preliminary deal over their dispatch with the British government, it noted.

The move came as Seoul has decided to send a group of medical personnel to Sierra Leone in a bid to lend support to the global efforts to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

The United Nations has been appealing for the international community to further support the efforts to contain the deadly epidemic, which is estimated to have killed more than 5,400 people since December last year.

Seoul has said that the team of volunteer medical workers will be picked based on their level of expertise and military health workers will be also included in the group.

Seoul has so far provided US$5.6 million for the global efforts to fight against the Ebola virus.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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