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CDC Director Thomas Frieden said this afternoon that the Ebola disease outbreak in West Africa poses “little risk” to the general U.S. population and that health officials “are confident we would not have a spread of Ebola even if we were to have a case here.”

He also announced that the agency is advising Americans against any non-essential travel to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three West African nations affected.

During a media conference call about the worst Ebola epidemic in history Frieden detailed steps the CDC is taking to support health officials in those three countries. More than 1,300 cases have been diagnosed there, with a death rate of more than 50 percent.

(Also on POLITICO: Full health care policy coverage)

Frieden, who called Ebola a “dreadful and merciless” disease, said more than four dozen CDC epidemiologists and health communication specialists would fly to West Africa within 30 days to assist surveillance, screening and education efforts. But he cautioned that even in the best of circumstances, a true turnaround in the epidemic could take three to six months....