MONROVIA
Chairperson of the African Union (A.U.) Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is expected in Liberia later on Thursday as part of a tour of West African countries hit by the deadly Ebola virus.
Dlamini-Zuma will be accompanied by Carlos Lopes, executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, and a 14-member delegation.
During the one-day visit, she will meet with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and other senior Liberian government officials.
Dlamini-Zuma is also slated to meet Karin Landgren, chief of the U.N. mission in Liberia, and Anthony Branbury, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for Ebola, along with members of Liberia's national Ebola task force.
The visit is meant to show solidarity and support for the efforts of Liberia's government and people in trying to contain the deadly virus.
The A.U. has already deployed a 36-member medical team to Liberia to assist in the fight against Ebola under the A.U. Support to Ebola Outbreak Operations in West Africa initiative.
Dlamini-Zuma will use her visit to assess the team's performance and gage the possibility of scaling up the A.U.'s presence in Liberia.
As part of Dlamini-Zuma's West Africa tour, she will also visit Sierra Leone and Guinea.
In recent months, Ebola – a contagious disease for which there is no known treatment or cure – has killed 4,877 people, mostly from West Africa, according to the World health Organization.
Of these, 4,868 were reported in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia alone.
A tropical fever that first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ebola can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.
It can also reportedly spread through contact with the body fluids of infected persons or of those who have succumbed to the virus.
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