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President Obama said Tuesday the United States will launch a major, military-led response in West Africa to the deadly Ebola outbreak that has reached epidemic proportions and now poses a potential threat to global security.

Obama announced the stepped-up effort against the virus, which has killed at least 2,400 people in five West African countries, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

He said the response was the largest in the Centers 68-year history and that the Defense Department was chosen to lead field operations because it was better that any other organization on earth in such efforts.

Its spreading out of control, Obama said. We have to act fast. We cannot dawdle on this one. We have to move with force.

Published reports earlier in the day said Obama would announce that he was sending 3,000 military personnel. But he did not say in his roughly 15-minute announcement how many people would be deployed.

Obama said the U.S. would also lead the international response by providing medical and logistical support to help the regions overwhelmed health-care systems. He also said he would increase the number of beds needed in the region to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.

Faced with this outbreak, the world is looking to the United States, Obama said.

The president said the possibility of an outbreak in the United States is extremely low. However, he said officials are taking extra precautions including advanced airport screenings and preparing hospital personnel in the unlikely event the virus reaches this country.

The Defense Department has asked Congress for nearly $500 million in existing funds to be put toward the effort.

The new initiatives include training as many as 500 health care workers a week; erecting 17 health-care facilities with roughly 100 beds each; setting up a joint command headquartered in Liberia to coordinate between U.S. and international relief efforts; providing home health-care kits to hundreds of thousands of households, including 50,000 that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will deliver this week.

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Obama says US military to lead response to Ebola - VIDEO: Obama outlines Ebola plan