JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel has sent medical shipments including mobile clinics to three African countries to help combat the spread of the Ebola virus.
The mobile field hospitals and medical cargo are expected to arrive by ship in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in about a month. The equipment sent includes protective gear, a treatment cart and the full medical equipment required for setting up the clinics.
The project, known as Operation Hospitals of Hope, was overseen by MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development, a department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The nonprofit Israeli organization SAREL provided the supplies and professional guidance, and the ministry paid for the mobile hospitals and to ship the containers.
Once the containers arrive in their designated countries, Israeli experts will travel to help local teams set up the clinics and get them running. Israeli NGOs also are recruiting doctors to help the local medical teams operate the clinics.
“Operation ‘Hospitals of Hope’ is an integral part of the vision of MASHAV and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel of helping nations in need, including nations without diplomatic relations with Israel. We have always done so in the past, and we are doing it again today,” MASHAV head Gil Haskel said.
