1. The second batch of the nine-member Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) will leave for London on January 10 to receive one-week-long advance training to be offered by the UK government before heading to Sierra Leone for medical services.

◦ The group will be composed of nine healthcare workers -- four doctors and five nurses.

◦ The government of the Republic of Korea will dispatch the third and last batch of the 11-member KDRT, fulfilling its pledge to send a combined 30 medical workers.

2. The KDRT will receive advance training in the UK on January 12-16; undergo adaptation training in Sierra Leone on January 19-23 after arriving in the country on January 18; provide medical services in Sierra Leone on January 26-February 20; and undergo quarantine in a safe facility on February 23-March 16 after their return home.

3. The second batch of the support team for medical workers will also be dispatched to Sierra Leone on January 13.

◦ The support team will be tasked with consulting with relevant local organizations to help the medical workers and ensure their safety; keeping contact with the overseas emergency relief headquarters set up at the ROK Foreign Ministry for the fight against the Ebola epidemic; and helping the medical personnel resolve difficulties they may come to face. The second-batch support team, like its predecessor, will work at the UN Development Programme (UNDP) office in Sierra Leone.

4. The Korean medical worker taken to Charite University Hospital in Germany on January 4 after exposure to the Ebola virus underwent three rounds of blood tests, all of which yielded negative results. The worker, whose blood test results indicate that he/she is little likely to have contracted the Ebola virus, is said to be psychologically stable. 


                Spokesperson and Deputy Minister for Public Relations of MOFA

* unofficial translation