Former Vice President Joe Biden said early in Sunday’s Democratic debate that he would handle the coronavirus like the Obama administration took on the 2014 Ebola crisis.

What did that mean?

The fast-moving Ebola epidemic in West Africa was what the World Health Organization labeled the “largest, most severe and most complex” Ebola epidemic in history. More than 28,000 people were infected and more than 11,000 died.

The outbreak started in March 2014 and the initial US response was considered by some slow and inadequate, but by August of that year, the Obama administration staged what scholars say is the largest American intervention in a global public health crisis.

Congress approved $5.4 billion of the $6.2 billion Obama had asked for in emergency Ebola funding that went to support international efforts and to create infrastructure in the US to fight emerging infectious disease.

The US sent more than 3,500 personnel from multiple agencies to fight the epidemic, mobilizing staff from the Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Public Health Service, the US Agency for International Development and the National Institutes of Health.

The medical experts provided direct care to patients and performed basic public health services like contact tracing to help stop the spread of the disease. The experts trained more than 1,500 local healthcare workers. It also educated citizens on disease prevention and partnered with locals to create nearly 200 safe burial teams.

The US military also built 11 Ebola treatment units in the region and oversaw the creation of five others. These ETU’s cared for patients, isolated Ebola patients from others, and tested people for the disease. The Department of Defense brought seven mobile labs to the region speeding up testing. The US also built a medical unit in Liberia that cared for healthcare workers that got sick caring for patients.

In the US, the Obama administration set up Ebola screening at airports, provided national training for health care workers and created an infrastructure of 51 Ebola treatment centers in 16 states that continue to manage emerging infectious diseases. The unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center is currently being used to care for novel coronavirus patients.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease initiated work on an Ebola vaccine and that research continues.