Ebola disease spread
A man washes his hands at a tap outside the Green Pharmacy, Area 8, in Abuja, on Sept. 1, 2014. Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, announced Thursday that it will spend nearly $75 million to expand Ebola care centers in Liberia, one of the worst affected countries in the current outbreak of the tropical disease. Meanwhile, a fourth American to be infected with the virus, is to be flown to a hospital in Nebraska for treatment.

Funds from the aid agency will be spent on adding 1,000 more beds at Ebola care units in Liberia, and to buy 130,000 more protective units for health care workers in the country, Associated Press, or AP, reported. USAID also promised, according to AP, that it will try to send more American health care workers to treat Ebola patients in the West African nation. The latest contribution follows a $20 million donation in March, when the outbreak was first reported.

"This will get worse before it gets better," Rajiv Shah, the agency's administrator, said according to AP, adding: "We have a coherent and clear strategy ... but it will take weeks to months to get operational at that scale."

Rick Sacra, a 51-year-old doctor who was infected by the Ebola virus after he travelled to Liberia to volunteer at a hospital, is expected to reach Nebraska on Friday, AP reported, citing officials. He will be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center in its 10-bed special isolation unit, the largest of four such units in the U.S.
Boston-based Sacra, who is currently being treated in Liberia, is reportedly in a stable condition. Sacra had volunteered to deliver babies at a local hospital and was not in direct contact with Ebola patients, making it hard to assess how he might have got the disease, which has so far killed more than 1,900 people.

"I knew he needed to be with the Liberian people," Sacra’s wife Debbie said, at a news conference Thursday, according to AP, adding: "He was so concerned about the children that were going to die from malaria without hospitalization and the women who had no place to go to deliver their babies by cesarean section. He's not someone who can stand back if there's a need he can take care of."

A team of 35 doctors and nurses will attend to Sacra who also will be given the experimental drug ZMapp, which was administered to two other Americans -- Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol -- infected with Ebola while working in Africa, and have recovered after their treatment at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital.

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