NEW YORK (AP) — A top U.S. health official plans to travel to West Africa to see firsthand how the Ebola outbreak is unfolding.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is scheduled to visit Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea next week.

A CDC spokesman Friday said Frieden wants to meet the African and international health leaders trying to control the outbreak, and to hear what help they need. He also plans to visit hospitals treating Ebola patients.

The Atlanta-based CDC has sent nearly 70 scientists and staff to help in those three countries, as well as Nigeria.

More than 1,400 people have died so far in the largest Ebola outbreak on record.