China is taking the lead in the fight against Ebola with a brand new, 100-bed, medical facility

China has stepped up its efforts in the battle against Ebola in West Africa, opening a new treatment center in Liberia that can hold 100 patients.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Liberia's president, Ellen Sirleaf, commended China and called the new center "first-class."

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"We want to commend China for this exceptional response," she said.

Built in the parking lot of a sports stadium in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, this new facility has air-conditioning and digital recording devices, and Chinese officials have said that it will start accepting patients next week.

China trades heavily with the African continent, and Liberia is chief among partners after it received numerous construction contracts following the end of Liberia's civil war.

So far China has pledged $81 million in aid to the affected countries in West Africa, and has sent at least 200 medical staff, and promised more.

Right now infection rates in Liberia appear to be stabilizing, but in Sierra Leone they continue to rise.

"The crisis in Port Loko is dire and getting worse," said director of the International Medical Corps, Hussein Ibrahim.

The group has reported that it will begin accepting patients from that region on November 26.

More than 15,000 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began earlier in 2014. Most of these cases have occurred in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, but there was an outbreak in Nigeria which has since been contained with relatively little loss of life.

Most damaging, the disease has crippled the ranks of health workers in these and neighboring countries, taxing an already overburdened medical system.

Medical workers in West Africa have had to work with insufficient protective gear, and have a high risk of infection due to direct contact with the infected, and death rates for them remain high.

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