In Sierra Leone, on Friday, health officials — facing just such a shortage of beds — adopted a new policy of having families treat patients in their homes by distributing painkillers, rehydrating solutions and gloves to hundreds of Ebola-afflicted households. But if a nurse in Dallas, clothed in protective garments, could not escape infection, it is hard to believe that less well-equipped households in Sierra Leone will be able to escape contamination from an Ebola patient in their midst.

The pace of international aid needs to be stepped up dramatically. This is not a task that can be left to such nongovernmental organizations as Doctors Without Borders, which has heroically provided much, if not most, of the care in the stricken countries. The United States has taken the lead in providing aid to Liberia, a country with long ties to the United States.

The Army has started deploying thousands of troops to the area to help build new treatment centers, perform laboratory tests and train health care workers in how to treat patients, but most of that help has yet to arrive. It was thus disheartening to hear Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, the commander of the United States Army Africa, dismiss criticism that American aid had been “too little, too late” with the excuse that the Pentagon was simply filling a “small gap” left by other health organizations.

The United States’ obligation is greater than that; President Obama needs personally to ramp up the urgency of the American response and the level and speed of the resources provided.

Perhaps the Dallas case will add urgency to those efforts to control the epidemic abroad. The case is not cause for domestic panic, but it is cause for greater vigilance among health care workers. Even without knowing fully what happened with the nurse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is exploring ways to make it easier to don protective gear, wear it while treating a patient and take it off afterward without infecting oneself.