A U.S. military medical unit from Aberdeen Proving Ground is packing up four mobile Ebola testing laboratories in Liberia after a nearly four-month deployment.
The Joint Forces Command for Unified Assistance said Tuesday that the 22-member 1st Area Medical Laboratory ended operations at one of its labs Feb. 9 and plans to shut down the others over the next few weeks.
The unit's commander, Army Col. Patrick Garman, says the soldier-scientists have tested more than 4,500 Ebola suspected samples. They deployed in October.
President Barack Obama said Feb. 11 that more than 1,500 of the nearly 3,000 troops who deployed to West Africa in response to the Ebola outbreak have already come home. He said all but 100 of the remainder will return by April 30.