More than 3,000 U.S. troops are being deployed to Liberia, where an outbreak of the Ebola virus that began last March has killed more than 2,300 people and led to the cancellation of national election. The U.S. military will provide logistical support by building 17 hospitals with 100 beds each, building a hospital for infected health care workers and training hundreds more providers each week.

Constance Hilliard, a University of North Texas professor of applied African history, says the military response to the Ebola epidemic is "most judicious step we can take at this time."

"It is easy to be the world's sole superpower on paper in terms of the Gross National Product and other indices of national achievement," she said. "But only when the unexpected happens and the world turns to us do we have an opportunity to show what we're really made of."

Hilliard says that in the wake of a Liberian citizen being diagnosed with Ebola after he arrived in Dallas and later dying, and a hospital worker who cared for him being diagnosed with the virus as well, U.S. citizens can react two ways.

"We can overreact with panic, or we can take control. What we in America must do is attack that ever present virus of fear-mongering with the only sure cure – informed knowledge," she says.

She notes that building the hospitals is vital because the lack of medical facilities in Liberia means there is not a way to isolate Ebola patients from the general public, including family members who spread the disease by caring for them at home without any protective gear.

"An important example of what is really going on is the case of Firestone Rubber Company, which is a major corporation in Liberia.  It runs its own town, but has had no Ebola epidemic. The reason is because when the first case was identified, an isolation clinic was set up immediately. The staff was given the proper protective gear for treating that patient and any other sufferers, who might come in from the surrounding villages," Hilliard says.

She notes that some Americans are fearful that the Ebola virus could mutate and become even more virulent, which why the U.S. "has to do everything in its power to contain the disease in West Africa."

"The longer it lingers, the more people it infects, and the more opportunities there are for it to change in some way," she says.

She also cited a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that says that once 70 percent of those suffering from Ebola are isolated from the general public, the spread will stop, even without those patients being cured.

Hilliard may be reached at 940-565-4972 or at 940-442-4442 or at connie@unt.edu.