The international challenges presented by the African Ebola epidemic will be the subject of a Senate hearing Tuesday examining what role the U.S. should play.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is one of the scheduled speakers who will provide testimony before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to discuss the ongoing health crisis that has killed more than 2,200 people as of Sept. 7, according to figures from the World Health Organization released Friday.
There have been more than 4,300 suspected and confirmed cases of the disease since the outbreak began last December. It has spread throughout Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, with new cases reported in Nigeria and Senegal.
Despite a recent request from the Obama administration for $88 million in funding to aid emergency efforts that was included in a short-term House spending bill last week, many have criticized the global response to the epidemic as too slow and insufficient to address the pace at which the virus is spreading throughout the region. Nearly half of all reported cases have occurred over the past month, according to the WHO.