COLLEGE STATION, Texas – There’s a class project taking place that is more than an exercise for students to show they understand the principles and concepts of whatever they’ve been studying.

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According to an e-newsletter put out by the College of Architecture at Texas A & M, Master of Architecture students have undertaken a project that is totally pragmatic by helping to curb the quickly spreading Ebola outbreak in West Africa. They’ve designed portable and rapidly deployable Ebola virus treatment clinics. The student designs were to be unveiled Wednesday at the Langford Architecture Center on the A & M campus.

George J. Mann, holder of the Skaggs Professorship in Health Facilities Design, is director of the graduate architecture studio that undertook the project.

“The current pandemic in western Africa underscores the need for these inexpensive, easily erected modular facilities where patients inflicted with the Ebola virus or other infectious diseases can be treated while isolated from the general population.”

According to the World Health Organization, the number of Ebola cases could hit 21,000 by mid-November if further, stepped-up efforts are not made before then. It sounds like the A & M project is just what is needed, but there was no mention of a timetable as to when the portable facilities would be available.

President Obama has pledged to send 3,000 troops to the affected areas to assist with training for first responders and other medical officials throughout West Africa. As of a week ago, CNN Health reported WHO general director Margaret Chan as saying, “Today there is not one single bed available for the treatment of an Ebola patient in the entire country of Liberia.” The other hardest hit countries are Guinea and Sierra Leone.

The models being designed by A & M, when ready, could be dismantled and strategically stored at transportation hubs for rapid deployment and assembly in crisis areas. Students have designed them to fit comfortably in shipping containers and cargo holds in airplanes They’re also light enough for helicopters to transport them to more remote locations.

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A minimum of tools would be required for constructing the models onsite. One student used an accordion concept in which modules could be expanded for use, compressed for storage or transporting, according to Mann. Another model was held together with Velcro fasteners strengthened by straps.

Because of the West Africa’s hot, rainy climate, another student designed a module that employs a double shell exterior to minimize interior heat and a pitched roof for channeling heavy rainfall.

The death rate among Ebola victims is estimated to be about 70 percent even when they’re hospitalized. Many cases are only identified after the sufferer has died. So far, about 2,800 deaths have occurred but that number is certain to rapidly rise over the next few months. The outbreak doubles in size about every three weeks.