Death toll in Ebola outbreak rises to 7,588

GENEVA -- The global death toll from Ebola has risen to 7,588 out of 19,497 confirmed cases recorded in the year-old epidemic raging in West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.

The virus is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone, especially in the north and west, with 315 new confirmed cases reported in the former British colony in the week to December 21, it said. These included 115 cases in the capital Freetown.

"The neighboring district of Port Loko experienced a surge in new cases, reporting 92 confirmed cases compared with 56 the previous week," the WHO said.

In Sierra Leone, information about how to prevent and treat Ebola was provided to more than 5,000 households between 10 and 17 December as part of a major awareness campaign, it said.

In Guinea, 156 confirmed cases were recorded during the same period, "the highest weekly case incidence reported by the country in this outbreak," the WHO said.

"This largely due to a surge in cases in the south-eastern district of Kissidougou, which reported 58 confirmed cases - one-third of cases reported in the country in the past week."

Noting the district had previously reported no more than five cases per week, it said the surge showed the need for continuing vigilance even where the virus was not widespread.

In Liberia, where case incidence has been declining for the past month, 21 cases were reported in the week to December 21.

Montserrado county, including the capital Monrovia, still has the highest rates of the disease nationwide, while along the Côte d'Ivoire border to the east, Nimba county reported 3 confirmed cases, its first in 9 weeks, the WHO said.

Five additional countries - Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Spain and the United States - have had imported cases and are included in the global toll.

The Ebola crisis, which claimed its first victim in Guinea exactly a year ago, is likely to last until the end of 2015, according to Peter Piot, a scientist who helped to discover the virus in 1976.

Medical detective work will be the next phase in the fight against Ebola. The United Nations will deploy hundreds of health workers to identify chains of infection as the virus passes from person to person, WHO director-general Margaret Chan said in Accra, Ghana earlier on Wednesday.

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Ebola becomes latest stock scam

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - U.S. regulators warned investors of stock scams tied to West Africa's Ebola outbreak and suspended trading in four small companies that they said have made unverifiable claims about products to prevent or treat the deadly virus.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday it had suspended trading in over-the-counter stocks of New York-based Bravo Enterprises Ltd, California-based Immunotech Laboratories Inc and Wholehealth Products Inc, as well as Canada-based Myriad Interactive Media Inc.

The SEC cited a lack of publicly available information about their operations and separately warned that "con artists" may be soliciting investors and claiming to be developing Ebola treatments.

More than 5,400 people have died, most of them in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, in the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

Immunotech said in an Oct. 21 news release that it hoped to sell an experimental Ebola treatment in Africa. Immunotech trading volume jumped to more than 28 million shares that day, compared with a daily average of just above 223,000 in the previous 50 days. Company officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Myriad Interactive, a website development company, said in an Oct. 15 news release it was designing an "Ebola tracking system" to notify citizens in Western countries about the expanding outbreak.

That day, over 16 million Myriad Interactive shares changed hands, compared with a daily average near 180,000 in the previous 50 days. The company did not return a Reuters call on Thursday.

Unusually high trading volumes have also been seen with Bravo Enterprises and Wholehealth.

Bravo makes dehumidifiers that take moisture from the air and turn it into purified drinking water. An Aug. 27 news release said the equipment can provide "a temporary and permanent alternative water supply for Liberia and countries like it."

May Joan Liu, a manager for Bravo, on Thursday defended the language of the release. "We pointed out that water was a top priority in the Ebola outbreak," she said.

A woman who answered the phone at Wholehealth Products hung up after saying the company, which sells "natural health products," was private.

In 2013, the SEC stepped up its enforcement in microcap fraud, creating a new task force. The agency has periodically issued investor alerts, especially when fraudsters play off of topics featured prominently in the news, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, to pump up thinly traded stocks.

Investor interest in companies that can play a role in curbing the Ebola outbreak has soared in recent months, raising valuations of drugmakers developing vaccines and manufacturers of protective gear.

They include Canadian drugmaker Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corp , which is working on an experimental treatment under a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense and Ebola vaccine developer NewLink Genetics Corp. Face mask maker Alpha Pro Tech Ltd and protective suit maker Lakeland Industries Inc have also attracted investor interest.

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Critically ill Sierra Leone doctor with Ebola now in U.S.

OMAHA, Neb. - A surgeon from Sierra Leone, critically ill with Ebola, was flown to a Nebraska hospital for treatment on Saturday, and is sicker than previous patients treated in the United States, medical officials said.

Dr. Martin Salia, 44, a permanent U.S. resident, caught Ebola while working as a surgeon in a Freetown hospital, according to his family. He was stable enough to take a flight from West Africa to Omaha, but was too sick to walk off the plane, medical officials said.

He was transferred to a waiting ambulance in an isolation unit called an ISOPOD, a device used in the transportation of a potentially infectious patient, and rushed to Nebraska Medical Center to begin treatment, a hospital official said.

"Although the patient's exact condition won't be available until doctors here evaluate him after he arrives, information coming from the team caring for him in Sierra Leone indicates he is critically ill - possibly sicker than the first patients successfully treated in the United States," the hospital in said in a statement.

The patient is the third treated for Ebola in the hospital's Biocontainment Unit since the outbreak gained momentum this year in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Salia was chief medical officer at the United Methodist Church's Kissy Hospital when he was confirmed on Tuesday to have contracted Ebola.

His evacuation was at the request of his wife, a U.S. citizen who lives in Maryland and who has agreed to reimburse the U.S. government for any expense, the U.S. State Department said in a statement.

A medical crew with Phoenix Air examined the patient in Sierra Leone before leaving with him en route to the U.S. on Friday night, the Nebraska hospital said.

According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, at least 5,177 people have died in the world's worst recorded Ebola outbreak.

Most of the victims have been in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, where already weak healthcare systems have been overrun by victims of the disease. A total of 570 local health workers have been infected, with 324 dying.

Salia would be the 10th known case of Ebola in the United States. All but one case was treated successfully.

The Nebraska clinic is one of four American hospitals approved by the federal government to treat Ebola.

(Reporting by Katie Knapp Schubert and Umaru Fofana; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Writing by David Lewis and Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Stephen Powell, Franklin Paul and Andre Grenon)

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Bill Gates to give $500 million for malaria, other diseases

WASHINGTON - US philanthropist Bill Gates on Sunday announced he will donate over $500 million to fight malaria and other infectious diseases in the developing world, saying the Ebola outbreak is a call to action.

The former Microsoft CEO told the 63rd annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans that his Gates Foundation is committing more than $500 million in 2014 "to reduce the burden of malaria, pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and an array of parasitic infections that are leading causes of death and disability in developing countries," a statement said.

Gates also said that in addition to that pledge, his foundation has boosted its annual funding for malaria by 30 percent.

Gates described the Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 4,900 people in West Africa since the beginning of the year as a "critical moment in the history of global health," and said the world's largest outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever underscores the need for stronger efforts to stay ahead of disease threats such as drug-resistant malaria and dengue fever.

"The Ebola epidemic has shown, once again, that in today's interconnected world, health challenges anywhere create health challenges everywhere -- and the best way to overcome those challenges is to dedicate ourselves to the great cause of reducing the global burden of infectious disease," Gates said in his prepared remarks.

The Gates Foundation announced in September a $50-million commitment to help scale up efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak.

The more than $500 million announced Sunday includes over $150 million to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to advance development of next-generation malaria vaccines, and $29 million to the Clinton Health Access Initiative to support malaria elimination efforts in Southern Africa and the Greater Mekong Sub-region of Southeast Asia.

Gates said the rise in resistance to effective malaria drugs in Southeast Asia should serve as a warning, that better research and development is needed to "stay ahead of the natural evolution of infectious diseases."

Other grants announced by Gates include $49 million to PATH Vaccine Solutions to develop new vaccines and combinations of vaccines against bacterial causes of diarrhea, and $18 million to the University of Maryland for studies in Mali, Kenya and Gambia on the impact of rotavirus vaccines on child health.

Other grants aim to help eradicate neglected infectious diseases, including $60 million toward finding treatments for a disfiguring diseases sometimes known as elephantiasis (lymphatic filariasis) as well as sleeping sickness (human African trypanosomiasis), and black fever (visceral leishmaniasis).

Gates said that eradicating malaria by the middle of this century is "both a necessary objective and an attainable one."

What is needed are single-dose complete cures for malaria, more sophisticated diagnostics and a next-generation malaria vaccine, as well as more widespread and precise use of bednets, he said.

"We must remain committed to the eradication of malaria," Gates said.

"Small steps won't get the job done. History shows that the only way to stop malaria is to end it forever."

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New York doctor with Ebola improves, nurse reunited with dog

NEW YORK - A New York doctor with Ebola, whose case triggered a national debate over mandatory quarantines for health workers returning from West Africa, was upgraded to stable condition on Saturday after nine days of treatment.

Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, the only person in the United States currently being treated for Ebola, will remain in isolation, New York City's Bellevue Hospital said in a statement. He has improved to "stable" from "serious but stable."

Spencer was diagnosed with Ebola several days after returning to New York from Guinea where he had worked with patients infected with the disease, which is known to have killed almost 5,000 people in West Africa.

His Oct. 23 diagnosis, following a trip on the New York subway to eat out and go bowling with friends, spread alarm about the possible spread of the virus in the United States, leading states and federal health officials to issue a host of differing protocols for those considered at risk of developing the infection.

On a brighter note, Texas nurse Nina Pham, 26, who recovered from Ebola last week after treating a Liberian patient in a Dallas hospital, was reunited on Saturday with her dog, which had been quarantined for three weeks as a precaution.

The fate of her King Charles Spaniel, called Bentley, became a focus of public interest after officials in Madrid put down the dog of a Spanish nurse who had contracted Ebola while caring for a patient.

"After I was diagnosed with Ebola, I didn't know what would happen to Bentley and if he would have the virus," Pham told reporters at a Dallas animal shelter. "I was frightened that I might not know what happened to my best friend."

In the biggest tussle so far, a Maine judge on Friday rejected a state request to quarantine nurse Kaci Hickox, who recently returned home from treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone.

Hickox, who has tested negative for Ebola, fought a heated public battle over what she considered draconian measures to isolate her for 21 days in a case that highlighted the dilemma over how to balance public health needs and personal liberty.

Medical professionals say Ebola is difficult to catch and is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person and is not transmitted by asymptomatic people.

Canada and Australia have barred entry for citizens from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where the disease is widespread, and some U.S. politicians have called for a similar ban by the United States.

In Oregon, test results were awaited for a woman with a fever who was hospitalized in an isolation unit on Friday after returning from West Africa, Oregon health officials said. She had not come into known contact with Ebola patients while in Africa, the officials added.

U.S. public health experts, the United Nations, federal officials and President Barack Obama have expressed concern that state quarantines for returning doctors and nurses could discourage potential medical volunteers from fighting the outbreak at its source in West Africa.

Obama spoke by phone on Saturday with U.S. service members in Liberia and Senegal taking part in the American military mission to contain the outbreak in West Africa, the White House said in a statement.

In the call, Obama underscored that the U.S. government strategy to tackle Ebola in West Africa is the most effective way to prevent further spread of the disease and protect the American people from it, the statement said.

On Friday the Pentagon said that civilian U.S. defense employees returning from Ebola relief work in West Africa must undergo monitoring to ensure they are free of disease but can choose between following civil health guidelines or the stricter military regimen.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz, Frank McGurty, Eric Beech and Alex Dobuzinskis; Writing by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Steve Orlofsky)

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Doctor tests positive for Ebola

NEW YORK - A New York City doctor who worked recently with Ebola patients in West Africa and returned to New York City tested positive for the illness on Thursday, officials said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement at a news conference late on Thursday, hours after the doctor was admitted to a city hospital with symptoms, and taken into isolation.

Dr. Craig Spencer, 33, was tested at Bellevue Hospital, where results indicated he has the disease, the mayor said.

Mindful of public concern about whether Spencer could have infected others, Governor Andrew Cuomo told the news conference at Bellevue that since returning to the United States earlier this month from Guinea, Spencer had been exposed to "very few people."

Spencer developed a fever and gastrointestinal symptoms after working for the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, one of three West African nations hardest hit by Ebola.

A specially trained team wearing protective gear transported Spencer to Bellevue Hospital from his Manhattan apartment, the city said in a statement.

The first confirmed case in America's largest city set off renewed fears about the spread of the virus, which has killed nearly 4,900 people, largely in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The first person diagnosed with Ebola on U.S. soil flew from Liberia to Texas and later died in a Dallas hospital. Two nurses who treated him became infected with the virus and one took a commercial flight with a fever, prompting officials in several states to take steps to become better prepared to contain the virus.

The Times said a further test will be conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm the initial test.

De Blasio said earlier on Thursday that Spencer had been in direct contact with "very few" people.

However, the Times said Spencer traveled by subway to a bowling alley in the city's Brooklyn borough on Wednesday night and took a taxi home.

The bowling alley, identified by local media as the Gutter, was closed on Thursday. Heaven, a band that was due to perform, said on Twitter that its show had been canceled because of an Ebola scare.

Spencer's Facebook page, which included a photo of him clad in protective gear, said he went to Guinea around Sept. 18 and then flew to Brussels on Oct. 16.

He has specialized in international emergency medicine at Columbia University-New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City since 2011, according to his profile on the LinkedIn career website.

Columbia in a statement said he has not been to work nor seen any patients since his return.

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For many journalists Ebola's invisible threat scarier than war

PARIS - You can't see shells falling, guns pointed or identify the bad guys: for many journalists the invisible threat of Ebola is more unnerving than covering a war.

Along with health workers and aid workers, journalists have to get right up close to the epidemic to do their job, donning gloves, masks and rubber boots and washing hands with chlorine countless times a day.

"We have less difficulty finding journalists to go to Iraq or Central African Republic" than Ebola-hit countries, said Claire Hedon of Radio France Internationale (RFI) who just returned from Guinea.

Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have borne the brunt of the epidemic which has killed over 4,500 people out of a total of 9,216 cases registered in seven countries, according to the World Health Organization.

At least five local journalists have succumbed to Ebola, according to media unions. Three were in Liberia and two in Sierra Leone, including the radio journalist Victor Kassim who died along with his wife, two children and mother.

Three media workers were also among an eight-member Ebola education team murdered last month by panicked villagers in a remote area near the epicentre of the outbreak in Guinea.

So far only one of the dozens of Western journalists covering the epidemic in west Africa has caught Ebola -- Ashoka Mukpo, an American freelancer for NBC who is recovering well.

But for those on the ground stalked by an unseen enemy, every interview poses a risk.

"Some journalists used to covering war zones have not volunteered for family reasons," explains Sofia Bouderbala, deputy editor-in-chief for Agence France Presse's Europe and Africa region.

"It is an invisible threat. In war zones you can see the shells falling."

Associated Press international editor-in-chief John Daniszewski said that the subject was "very stressful" to cover, as you can't see the enemy.

- Interviewing at a distance -
On top of all the safety precautions, one of the main rules on the ground for reporters is to keep your distance.

"The basic rule is don't touch anything or anyone. And two weeks without touching anyone is weird," said AFP's Marc Bastian who recently returned from Monrovia.

"We left with litres of disinfectant. We sprayed our shoes with bleach, we washed our hands 40, 50 times a day," he said.

"Photographers use telephoto lenses to photograph the sick and I once shouted out an interview with someone eight metres away."

For radio reporters who need sound, the process is equally tricky.

Yves Rocle, deputy director for the Africa region with RFI explains that their journalists use a boom to get sound. "We avoid contact," he said.

"I have interviewed the sick from two metres away, where it is considered you won't be hit by spittle," said the Hedon, who admits that sometimes one's attention can slip and possibly fatal errors be made.

"To be honest, you let your guard down. Yes in the end I shook a few hands."

- Shunned upon return -

The assignment doesn't end at the airport.

For many coming home to face fearful colleagues and family members, while still anxiously counting down the incubation period themselves, it can be a scary and lonely time.

"When coming back you take your own temperature for 21 days, the incubation period, and you worry at the slightest alert," said Guillaume Lhotellier, who went to Guinea for the Elephant production company.

"And your social life isn't great, there are people who refuse to shake your hand or see you, even though you are not contagious if you don't have a fever."

Even if a person is infected, only direct contact with their bodily fluids -- mucus, semen, saliva, vomit, stool or blood -- after they begin to show symptoms carries any risk of contagion.

But fear over the disease has led to extreme precautions.

Faced with a panicked wife, Johannes Dieterich, the South Africa correspondent for Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger, said that he slept in the guest room on his return and decided not to touch anyone for three weeks until the incubation period was over.

The BBC's Fiona Bruce, quoted by The Telegraph, said make-up artists were scared of taking care of guests coming from Ebola-hit countries.

Media organisations are divided over the idea of a systematic quarantine during the incubation period for reporters returning from the field.

The BBC and AFP allow journalists to come straight back to work.

"Our journalists respect our very strict guidelines on location. They are not a risk to their colleagues because they have no symptoms of the disease. We don't want to give in to hysteria," said Michele Leridon, AFP's news director.

However AP asks its journalists to stay at home for three weeks to "avoid any risk", said Daniszewski.

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Americans 'can't give in to hysteria or fear' over Ebola: Obama

WASHINGTON - With three cases of Ebola diagnosed in the United States but more than 100 people being monitored in case they contract the disease, President Barack Obama urged Americans on Saturday not to give in to "hysteria" about the spread of the virus.

As though to illustrate his point, a Dallas bus and train station was closed on Saturday afternoon over concern about a woman who fell ill. The woman was first reported to be on the checklist for possible Ebola exposure, but then turned out not to be on any such list.

Obama made plain he is not currently planning to give in to demands from some lawmakers for a ban on travelers from the worst-hit countries.

"We can't just cut ourselves off from West Africa," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "Trying to seal off an entire region of the world - if that were even possible - could actually make the situation worse," he said.

The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed more than 4,500 people, most of them in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Obama, whose approval rating is already low, has been criticized over his administration's handling of Ebola. He held a flurry of meetings on the issue in the past week and on Friday appointed Ron Klain, a lawyer with long Washington experience, to oversee the effort to contain the disease.

Republicans questioned why he did not pick a medical expert.

"I hope he (Klain) is successful in this. I think it's a step in the right direction, but I just question picking someone without any background in public health," Republican Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN on Saturday.

The Obama administration is not alone in facing criticism. The World Health Organization has been faulted for failing to do enough to halt the spread since the outbreak was detected in March.

The agency promised it would publish a full review of its handling of the crisis once the outbreak was under control, in response to a leaked document that appeared to acknowledge that it had failed to do enough.

There is no cure or approved vaccine yet for Ebola but pharmaceutical companies have been working on experimental drugs. The virus is transmitted through an infected person's bodily fluids and it is not airborne.

Canada said on Saturday it would ship 800 vials of its experimental Ebola vaccine, undergoing clinical trials, to the WHO in Geneva, starting on Monday. Iowa-based NewLink Genetics Corp holds the commercial license for the Canadian vaccine.

Britain's biggest drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline said on Saturday that work to develop a vaccine was moving at an "unprecedented rate" and the next phase - if successful - involving vaccinating frontline healthcare workers, would begin early 2015.

RASH OF SCARES

Obama sought to put the extent of the disease in the United States in perspective. "What we're seeing now is not an 'outbreak' or an 'epidemic' of Ebola in America," he said. "This is a serious disease, but we can't give in to hysteria or fear."

A rash of Ebola scares has hit the country since late September when a Liberian visitor to Dallas, Texas, became the first person to be diagnosed in the United States. Americans' faith in the medical system and in authorities' ability to prevent the disease from spreading was jolted by a series of mis-steps when the Liberian was initially not diagnosed by a Dallas hospital.

The man, Thomas Eric Duncan, was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital days later and diagnosed with Ebola. Two nurses who were part of the team caring for Duncan, who died on Oct. 8, contracted Ebola. Amber Vinson is being cared for at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, while Nina Pham is being treated at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) just outside Washington.

A chain of people who had contact with either Duncan or the sick nurses are being monitored in case they develop the disease, which has an incubation period of up to 21 days.

The Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement on its website dated Saturday that it was working to monitor people who had contact with the Ebola patients, specimens, or potentially contaminated surfaces. A total of 145 "contacts and possible contacts" were being monitored for symptoms, while 14 people had completed surveillance, it said.

Some 800 passengers who took the same planes as Vinson on a trip she made to Ohio before being diagnosed, and passengers on subsequent flights using the same planes, have been contacted by the airline, Frontier Airlines, the carrier said on Saturday.

The airline said in a letter to employees that it had been informed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the Dallas nurse may have been in a more advanced stage of the illness than previously thought, when she traveled back to Dallas from Cleveland on Oct. 13.

The White House said late on Friday it would send senior personnel to Dallas to help federal, state and local officials there trying to identify and monitor people who came in contact with the three people who fell sick with Ebola.

Those being monitored include a lab worker at the Dallas hospital, who is not ill but is in isolation at sea: in her cabin on the Carnival Magic cruise ship. The lab worker did not have contact with Duncan, but may have come in contact with test samples.

Her presence on the ship caused Mexican authorities to deny docking at the Mexican port of Cozumel on Friday. The Carnival Magic, owned by Carnival Corp unit Carnival Cruise Lines, was en route back to Galveston on Sunday.

At Dallas' White Rock station, a woman was taken to the hospital for evaluation on Saturday, the city's transit authority said. Local media reported the station was closed as she was being monitored for possible Ebola exposure, but the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system said she was not on a watchlist.

Obama has stressed that containing Ebola should include help for the worst-hit countries and Washington plans to deploy up to 4,000 military personnel to the region by late October. Obama is preparing to ask for additional funds from Congress to beat Ebola, and could make the request next week, according to a Bloomberg report.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday European Union leaders should raise the amount of money pledged to fight Ebola to 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) and mobilize at least 2,000 workers to head to West Africa.

He made the appeal in a letter to the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy. A spokeswoman at Cameron's office said the EU commission and 28 member states had pledged a total of 500 million euros so far to fight Ebola.

Combatting the disease was also among the subjects of talks being held on Friday and Saturday between American and Chinese top diplomats.

(Additional reporting by Mohammad Zargham and Eric Beech in Washington, Frank McGurty in New York, Anna Driver in Dallas, Tom Miles in Geneva, and Costas Pitas in London; Writing by Frances Kerry and Megan Davies; Editing by David Clarke and Grant McCool)

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Obama names Ebola 'czar', bolsters Texas response

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama appointed a former White House adviser as Ebola "czar" on Friday and named officials to bolster the response to the disease in Texas, the center of U.S. Ebola cases, as the death toll in three West African nations topped 4,500.

The White House appointments came as Obama faced criticism from some lawmakers over his administration's efforts to contain the hemorrhagic virus and as widening Ebola fears kept a U.S. cruise ship out of a Mexican port.

Obama appointed Ron Klain, a lawyer who had served as chief of staff to Vice Presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore, to oversee the U.S. Ebola response.

The White House also said it would send senior personnel to Dallas to help federal, state and local officials there trying to identify and monitor people who came in contact with three people who caught the disease.

The three include Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the disease in the United States, and two nurses who were on the team of health workers caring for Duncan until his death last week.

Obama met with health and national security aides and "underscored that the domestic response to Ebola cases must be seamless at all levels," the White House said in a statement.

It was the third consecutive day that Obama had convened officials to discuss what has become a major political issue for his Democratic administration ahead of mid-term elections next month.

The officials will include a Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinator, Kevin Hannes, and a White House liaison, Adrian Saenz, a presidential aide. Governor Rick Perry has named Texas emergency management chief W. Nim Kidd to coordinate the state Ebola effort, the White House said.

CRUISE SHIP QUARANTINE

Authorities said a Texas health worker, who was not ill but may have had contact with specimens from the patient, was quarantined on a cruise ship that departed on Sunday from Galveston, Texas.

The Carnival Magic, operated by Carnival Corp unit Carnival Cruise Lines, skipped a planned stop in Cozumel, Mexico, because of delays getting permission to dock from Mexican authorities, the cruise line said. The ship was scheduled to return to Galveston on Sunday.

A Mexican port authority official said the ship was denied clearance to avoid any possible risk from Ebola.

The countries worst hit by Ebola have been Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where the disease has killed 4,546 since the outbreak started in March, an updated tally from the World Health Organization shows.

That marked a sharp increase from late July, when fewer than 730 people had died from the disease in West Africa. The virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person.

The toll on the worst-hit countries has gone beyond the illness, because of disruptions to farming and marketing. The World Food Program said food prices in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone had risen an average of 24 percent, forcing some families to cut back to one meal a day.

U.S. ANXIETY

The White House appointments and the Mexican cruise ship incident highlighted anxiety over the threat from Ebola, even though the three Dallas cases are the only ones diagnosed in the United States.

Klain replaces U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Thomas Frieden as the new public face of the government's response to Ebola. The CDC chief was strongly criticized for his handling of the situation in Dallas.

Republicans were quick to criticize Klain, who is seen as a political operative.

"Leave it to President Obama to put a liberal political activist in charge of the administration's Ebola response," Representative John Fleming, a Louisiana medical doctor, said in a statement.

Frieden told a congressional hearing this week that some protective equipment used by health care workers exposed some parts of the skin.

Given those concerns and the fact that two nurses got Ebola at the hospital, the CDC "very soon" will put out new guidelines on putting on and taking off protective gowns, masks, gloves and other gear, CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said.

SCARE REACHES THE PENTAGON
Illustrating the public worry in the United States, the Pentagon confirmed an Ebola scare when a woman who recently traveled to Africa vomited after getting off a bus headed to a Marine Corps ceremony.

In a statement, Virginia health officials said Ebola had been ruled out as the cause of the woman's illness.

Klain was appointed the day after U.S. lawmakers, in a congressional hearing, criticized the administration's handling of Ebola. Some called for a ban on travel from West Africa, as other politicians have in recent weeks.

The White House said on Friday that Obama was willing to "keep an open mind" about a travel ban, but it was not being considered.

In a sign the disease can be beaten, the World Health Organization said the West African country of Senegal was now Ebola-free, although still vulnerable.

The CDC has said it is expanding its search for people who may have been exposed to Amber Vinson, one of the nurses who treated Duncan, to include passengers on a flight she made to Cleveland, Ohio, in addition to those on her Monday return trip to Texas. Vinson went to Ohio over the weekend on Frontier Airlines while running a slight fever.

One of the 48 people who had the earliest contact or possible contact with Duncan has come out of quarantine after showing no symptoms for 21 days of monitoring, a Dallas County official said. The man was the first to get the all-clear.

There is no cure for Ebola. But U.S. health officials have asked three advanced biology laboratories to submit plans for producing the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp, when supplies ran out after it was given to medical workers who contracted the disease in West Africa.

Australian biotech firm CSL Ltd said it was working on a plasma product to treat Ebola following a request from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, part of a growing commercial response to the outbreak.

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World fears mount that Ebola battle being lost

GENEVA - The World Bank warned Friday the fight to stop Ebola was being lost, as the UN pleaded for more money to combat the escalating epidemic and global travel fears mounted.

As the death toll from the world's worst-ever outbreak of the virus shot past 4,500, a glimmer of hope came from Senegal, which was declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization.

The United States, meanwhile, named an "Ebola czar" to coordinate its response, after criticism of how a Texas hospital handled a Liberian victim, with two nurses who treated him now infected.

And a researcher at British pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline said a vaccine may not be ready for commercial use until late 2016.

"We are losing the battle," World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim warned, blaming a lack of international solidarity in efforts to stem the epidemic.

"Certain countries are only worried about their own borders," he told reporters in Paris.

As of October 14, 4,555 people have died from Ebola out of a total of 9,216 cases registered in seven countries, the WHO says.

Most of the dead are in three West African nations at the centre of the outbreak: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Experts warn that the infection rate could hit 10,000 a week by early December.

- 'Very serious problem' -

The United Nations has warned that it has received less than 40 percent of the nearly $1 billion it asked for to fight Ebola.

So far, just $377 million has come in, and another $217 million has been pledged, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

"But that's not money in the bank," OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva.

And a UN trust fund for Ebola has just $100,000, despite $20 million in pledges -- a situation UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said had left the world body with a "very serious problem."

"We need to turn pledges into action. We need more doctors, nurses, equipment, treatment centres and medical evacuation capacities," he said.

- Travel fears -

Despite enhanced health checks at airports in several countries, fears mounted, and Air France flight attendants called for an end to flights to Guinea, one of the three hardest-hit nations in West Africa.

The daily Air France Paris-Conakry flight "carries a serious risk of spreading the epidemic, particularly in our country," read a statement from the two unions of flight crew and commercial staff.

France will on Saturday start carrying out health checks on travellers arriving from Guinea. The United States, Britain and Canada have already launched screenings at airports for passengers from Ebola-hit zones. The EU is reviewing the matter.

In the United States, health authorities were still facing questions about how the disease -- which kills around 70 percent of those it infects in West Africa -- had spread at a Texas hospital.

Other questions surfaced about the safety protocols in place for those who came in contact either with a Liberian man who died of Ebola at the hospital, or the two infected nurses who treated him.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expanded the number of airline passengers it wants to interview after the second nurse, Amber Vinson, flew from Dallas to Cleveland and back before being diagnosed.

And another Texas health care worker who may have come in contact with samples from the Liberian Ebola victim has voluntarily quarantined herself aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean.

Although that woman is considered at "very low risk" of infection, according to Carnival Cruise Lines, the ship was apparently denied entry at ports in Belize and Mexico, and was headed back to the US.

The US State Department deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf, told reporters at a briefing that the ship, now en route to Galveston, Texas, is due to dock on Sunday.

Symptoms of Ebola include fever, headache, diarrhoea, vomiting and in some cases bleeding.

Even if a person is infected, the virus can only be passed on once symptoms appear and only through direct contact with their bodily fluids, such as mucus, semen, saliva, vomit, stool or blood.

- Influx of doctors -

The WHO is ramping up its efforts to help 15 African countries defend themselves against Ebola -- notably with measures to better protect health workers, who are paying a heavy price, with 236 deaths out of 427 cases across the affected countries.

The East African Community bloc comprising Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania announced it was sending more than 600 health workers to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

And US Secretary of State John Kerry offered a rare praise to Cuba, which has sent 165 health care workers and plans to send 300 more to battle the outbreak.

A string of health workers have been evacuated back to Europe from Africa with Ebola, but the only confirmed case of transmission on the continent so far is a Spanish nurse in Madrid.

- Glimmers of hope -

Health authorities held up Senegal as a shining example of success in an otherwise dire global outlook on Ebola.

"Senegal's response is a good example of what to do when faced with an imported case of Ebola," the WHO said, lauding the government for having "reacted quickly to stop the disease from spreading".

Nigeria, where 20 people were infected and eight died, is expected to be declared Ebola-free on Monday. But neither is out of danger.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Asian, European leaders tackle sea disputes, Ebola

MILAN - Asian and European leaders started a biennial summit meeting Thursday in Milan, with how to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus topping the agenda.

The leaders will state that the spread of the Ebola virus is a global threat at the end of the two-day summit of the Asia-Europe Meeting, or ASEM, according to a final draft of the chair's statement.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the meeting his government will consider providing additional assistance for preventing the spread of the deadly virus.

Japan pledged $40 million for West Africa at the U.N. General Assembly in September and is considering sending medical staff to the region and providing an anti-influenza drug developed by a Japanese company as a possible Ebola treatment.

Other key issues at the summit include the Ukraine crisis, as well as the territorial disputes between China and Japan in the East China Sea, and between China and Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines and Vietnam in the South China Sea.

The meeting is being attended by the leaders of around 50 countries and institutions, including the heads of the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as Abe, South Korean President Park Geun Hye and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Russian President Vladimir Putin is also expected to attend.

Russia joined ASEM in 2010 and it is the first time that Putin will take part in the meeting.

On the sidelines of the summit, Abe is looking for an opportunity to make unofficial contact with Putin.

Japan is seeking to strike a balance between maintaining solidarity with the West over Russia's actions in Ukraine and resolving bilateral issues with Moscow, most notably a long-standing dispute over the sovereignty of four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.

Putin and Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine which is not part of ASEM, are due to hold talks on Friday to discuss a diplomatic solution to the situation in eastern Ukraine with the cooperation of the leaders of Germany and France.

ASEM was launched in 1996 as a forum for dialogue and cooperation between Asia and Europe.

After the ASEM summit, Abe will attend the first summit meeting between Japan and the Nordic-Baltic Eight group for regional cooperation, on Friday. The NB-8 comprises Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

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UN health worker dies of Ebola in Germany

BERLIN - A UN health worker has died of Ebola in Germany as the international community prepared to hold talks on the crisis Tuesday.

The death of the 56-year-old Sudanese man, who arrived in Germany from Liberia last week for treatment, highlighted the global struggle against what officials have termed the worst health crisis of modern times.

The United Nations was due to hold talks on the spread of the hemorrhagic virus, a day after US President Barack Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for the international anti-Ebola drive to be stepped up.

The Ebola epidemic has killed more than 4,000 people this year, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to brand it "the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times".

At least two cases of contamination have been reported beyond west Africa, in the US and Europe.

The German clinic in the eastern city of Leipzig, one of three in the country to have treated Ebola patients, said the man had died during the night "despite intensive medical care and the best efforts by medical staff".

A WHO spokesman in Geneva said he was a UN volunteer.

German health officials said last Thursday he was Sudanese.

The UN announced the following day that it had quarantined 41 personnel from its Liberia mission, including 20 soldiers.

Germany has also treated two other Ebola patients infected in Sierra Leone -- a Senegalese expert who was treated in Hamburg and released on October 4, and a Ugandan doctor now being treated in Frankfurt.

'No-one taking care of us'

After measures were introduced in the US and Canada, Britain began screening for Ebola at Heathrow Airport, the first of a number of London airports and Eurostar rail hubs where travellers from the worst-hit countries of west Africa will be questioned and have their temperature tested.

Health workers in Liberia meanwhile pressed on with a strike demanding danger money to treat Ebola patients.

Obama and Ban called Tuesday for "more robust commitments and rapid delivery of assistance by the international community", the White House said in a statement.

Obama and French President Francois Hollande also issued a joint call for "stepped-up" global efforts to combat the disease.

In the face of panic that was "spreading faster than the virus", the WHO issued a stark warning over the crisis.

"I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries," said WHO chief Margaret Chan in a statement delivered on her behalf at a conference in Manila.

Ninety-five Liberian health workers have died so far in the epidemic, and their surviving colleagues want pay commensurate to the acute risk of dealing with Ebola, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids and for which there is no vaccine or widely available treatment.

In the Liberian capital Monrovia, a hospital patient quoted on local radio described scenes of desolation, with the sick deserted by striking staffers.

"We are at the Ebola Treatment Unit and no-one is taking care of us," the unnamed man said.

"Last night several patients died. Those who can walk are trying to escape by climbing over the fence."

Journalists have been banned from Liberia's Ebola clinics, making the situation there difficult to ascertain.

US must 'rethink' approach

Both cases of contamination reported so far outside Africa -- in Spain last week and now in the United States -- have involved health workers who fell ill despite stringent safety protocols surrounding Ebola.

US health authorities said the United States must "rethink" its approach to Ebola after a female nurse in Texas contracted the virus, in the first case of contamination on US soil.

Health authorities said the woman -- identified by local media as 26-year-old Nina Pham -- tested positive after caring for a Liberian Ebola patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on Wednesday.

The nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas is in isolation and said to be in a stable condition.

Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato was due to appear before parliament to face questions over the infection of the nurse, Teresa Romero, who caught the Ebola virus in a Madrid hospital after caring for two missionaries with Ebola.

She remains in a "very serious condition", according to a crisis cell set up after the case.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Ebola victim dies in US hospital

DALLAS - The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, died on Wednesday morning at a Dallas hospital, a hospital spokesman said.

"It is with profound sadness and heartfelt disappointment that we must inform you of the death of Thomas Eric Duncan this morning at 7:51 am," hospital spokesman Wendell Watson said in an emailed statement.

Duncan became ill after arriving in the Texas city from Liberia on Sept. 20 to visit family, heightening concerns the world's worst Ebola outbreak on record could spread outside of the three worst-hit West African countries. About 48 people with whom Duncan had been in contact are being monitored.

Ebola has killed more than 3,400 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since the outbreak began in March, nearly half of all those infected, according to the World Health Organization. While several American patients have been flown to the United States from West Africa for treatment, Duncan was the first person to start showing symptoms of the disease on U.S. soil.

A Spanish nurse who treated a priest who worked in the region is also infected.

Duncan was able to fly to the United States from Liberia's capital Monrovia, which is at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, because he did not have a fever when screened at the airport and filled out a questionnaire saying he had not been in contact with anyone infected with Ebola.

Liberian officials have since said that he lied on the questionnaire and had been in contact with a pregnant woman who later died of the disease. Ebola can take as long as three weeks before its victims show symptoms, at which point the disease becomes contagious. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva.

Duncan began feeling ill shortly after his arrival in Texas. He went to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas on Sept. 25, but was initially sent home with antibiotics. His condition worsened, he returned Sept. 28 by ambulance and was diagnosed with the disease.

"The past week has been an enormous test of our health system, but for one family it has been far more personal. Today they lost a dear member of their family. They have our sincere condolences, and we are keeping them in our thoughts," David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement.

Officials have said as many as 48 people may have been exposed to the disease by Duncan, and that the 10 people at highest risk are cooperating with public health authorities by staying in quarantine voluntarily. The other 38 people who may have been exposed are being checked routinely for fever.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said he was confident the disease would not spread widely within the United States. U.S. officials are also expanding their response in West Africa.

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Texas Ebola patient gets experimental drug

WASHINGTON - A Liberian man diagnosed with Ebola in Texas was given an experimental drug for the first time, officials said Monday as the White House mulled tougher airport screening at home and abroad.

Thomas Eric Duncan was given the investigational medication, brincidofovir, on Saturday, the day his condition worsened from serious to critical, said Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.

The medication is made by the North Carolina-based pharmaceutical company Chimerix, and until now had never been tried in humans with Ebola, the company said.

However, it has been tested in about 1,000 people against adenovirus and cytomegalovirus.

The drug "works by keeping viruses from creating additional copies of themselves," Chimerix said.

Duncan is the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, and he is believed to have become infected while in Liberia.

West Africa is currently battling the largest outbreak of Ebola in history, with more than 3,400 dead from the hemorrhagic virus since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama was briefed by senior health and security advisors about the situation in Texas and US preparedness against Ebola.

Obama said the chances of a US Ebola outbreak were "extraordinarily low" but vowed to press world leaders to step up the global fight against the deadly epidemic in West Africa.

"We have not seen other countries step up as aggressively as they need to," Obama said.

"I'm going to be putting a lot of pressure on my fellow heads of state and government around the world to make sure that they are doing everything that they can to join us in this effort."

He said the United States is considering tougher airport screening to ward against the spread of cases by airline travelers.

"We're also going to be working on protocols to do additional passenger screening both at the source and here in the United States," Obama told reporters.

In Nebraska, a US photojournalist who tested positive for Ebola in Liberia arrived at a hospital and was able to walk off the airplane that carried him.

"We are really happy that his symptoms are not extreme yet," Ashoka Mukpo's mother, Diana, told reporters, adding that he was feverish and nauseous.

He is being treated at the Nebraska Medical Center, the same facility that treated American missionary doctor Rick Sacra last month.

Sacra also came down with Ebola in Liberia and was treated with the Canadian firm Tekmira's Ebola drug, TKM-Ebola, as well as serum from another doctor, Kent Brantly, who had Ebola and recovered.

Brantly was treated with a drug called ZMapp, which is hard to make, and there are no doses left.

There is no market-approved drug for treating Ebola yet, and no vaccine to prevent it.

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Ebola hits 5th W. African state as Senegal confirms 1st case

DAKAR - The Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 1,500 people across West Africa spread to a fifth country in the region on Friday with the first confirmed case of the deadly virus in Senegal.

The case marks the first time a new country has been hit by the outbreak since July and comes a day after the World Health Organization warned the number of infections was increasing rapidly.

Scientists meanwhile said the first human trials of a potential vaccine would start next week using a product made by pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline and the US government.

On Friday, scientists writing in the journal Nature said 18 lab monkeys given high doses of the Ebola virus fully recovered after being given the prototype drug ZMapp, which reversed bleeding in the animals.

ZMapp has been given to a handful of frontline health workers who have contracted Ebola, two of whom have recovered, and two of whom have died. Three others are still receiving the treatment.

Senegal's health ministry said the country's first Ebola patient was a young Guinean man who was immediately quarantined at a Dakar hospital, where he was in a "satisfactory condition".

The man is believed to have been infected in Guinea's capital Conakry, and may have travelled to Senegal before Dakar closed its land border with Guinea on August 21.

Authorities are now scrabbling to piece together where he went and who he encountered, in a bid to halt the spread of the deadly virus.

New figures released by the WHO on Thursday revealed the massive scale of the crisis, which it said indicated a "rapid increase still in the intensity of transmission" that could cost at least $490 million (370 million euros) to tackle.

In a sign that affected countries are struggling to stop its spread, the UN agency said the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the epidemic is brought under control.

- Under surveillance -

Never before has there been an Ebola outbreak so large, nor has the virus -- which was first detected in 1976 -- ever infected people in West Africa until now.

As of August 26, 1,552 people had been confirmed dead from Ebola in four countries -- Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria.

Liberia was the worst affected with 694 deaths; 422 people have died in Sierra Leone; and 430 in Guinea, where the virus emerged at the start of the year. Nigeria has now recorded six deaths.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has also confirmed two cases of Ebola, but officials there insist it is unconnected to the current outbreak in West Africa.

Sierra Leone President Ernest Koroma on Friday sacked health minister Miatta Kargbo.

A presidential statement read on state television said the decision was made "in order to create a conducive environment for more efficient and effective handling of the Ebola outbreak."

Nigeria's latest death -- in the southeastern oil city of Port Harcourt -- was the first outside its biggest city, Lagos, and dashed hopes that the country had successfully contained the virus.

The victim, a doctor named Ikyke Samuel Enuemo, is believed to have caught the virus from a patient he treated who travelled to the city after coming into contact with an infected Liberian-American man.

Some 160 people are now under surveillance in Port Harcourt following the doctor's death, the local government said on Friday.

Meanwhile a curfew was imposed in N'Zerekore, Guinea's second-largest city, a day after 20 people were injured during a protest by market stall holders against a team of health workers sent, without notice, to spray their market with disinfectant.

- A shield around the region -

In a bid to stop the spread of the virus, many African governments have sought to ringfence Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

But member states of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS complained Thursday that some of the security measures taken by other countries, including travel bans, had unfairly hit the region.

A number of airlines, including Air France and British Airways, have suspended their services to Freetown and Monrovia, the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia respectively.

Bruce Aylward, the WHO's head of emergency programmes, said it was "absolutely vital" that airlines resume flights because bans were hindering the emergency response.

The outbreak has also caused sporting chaos, with Sierra Leone having to field all players for the qualifying games for the African Cup of Nations from outside the country over a growing quarantine.

Morocco, which will host the tournament next year, said on Friday it was launching a national commission tasked with drawing up a health plan to deal with the risk from Ebola.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Ebola-hit Liberia fires absentee ministers

MONROVIA - Liberia's leader has sacked ministers and senior government officials who defied an order to return to the west African nation to lead the fight against the deadly Ebola outbreak, her office said on Tuesday.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had told overseas ministers to return within a week as part of a state-of-emergency announcement on August 6, warning that extraordinary measures were needed "for the very survival of our state".

Sirleaf "directed that all officials occupying ministerial level positions or equivalent -- senior and junior -- managing directors, deputy/assistant directors or equivalent, commissioners et cetera who violated the orders are hereby relieved of their positions," her office said in a statement.

It did not say how many ministers were affected or which ones had been fired.

But a government insider clarified that only deputy ministers and senior officials were involved in the dismissal, and not cabinet-level ministers.

United Nations officials have pledged to step up efforts against the lethal tropical virus, which has infected more than 2,600 and killed 1,427 since the start of the year.

The World Health Organization said on Monday more than 120 health workers across west Africa have died during the "unprecedented" outbreak, and more than 240 had been infected.

In Sierra Leone, the WHO has temporarily pulled back its health workers from the Kailahun post after one of them was infected and an investigation is under way to prevent further infections before sending a team back there.

"This was the responsible thing to do. The field team has been through a traumatic time through this incident," said Dr Daniel Kertesz, WHO representative in Sierra Leone, in a statement.

Also Tuesday the African Development Bank warned the epidemic could cut economic output in the three worst-hit countries, as well as neighbouring Ivory Coast, by between one and 1.5 percent of gross economic product.

"If people don't start worrying about agriculture, there is going to be a food crisis. That will be the first direct impact on farmers in this region," said president Donald Kaberuka.

Second Ebola front
Meanwhile a second front has opened up in Africa's struggle with Ebola, after the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Tuesday it was preparing for a "battle of at least three months" after 13 people died after contracting the virus in the remote northeast.

Congolese authorities said the outbreak concerned Zaire Ebola, the species that is ravaging west Africa, but said the two outbreaks were not linked.

The United Nations' Ebola envoy David Nabarro, in Guinea's capital Conakry on Tuesday on the third leg of a tour of the region, has described the fight against the epidemic as a "war" which could take six more months.

"I understand that the situation is more or less stable in Guinea," he said.

"But with the surge of new outbreaks of the epidemic in recent weeks, there is an urgent need to consider a regional humanitarian rapid large-scale operation to stop the epidemic in a maximum period of six months."

Guinea, where the disease was first discovered, has reported 406 deaths, Sierra Leone 392 and Nigeria five, the WHO said on Friday.

- Deaths likely underestimated -

Liberia has suffered the worst effects of the outbreak, registering 624 deaths.

Sirleaf's office said she met a delegation of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including its global head Tom Frieden, on Monday to discuss combatting the epidemic.

Frieden was quoted as saying there was an urgent need for more treatment facilities.

The WHO has echoed Nabarro's warning that it could take several months to bring the epidemic under control.

The agency estimates its count of the infected and dead is likely far too low, due in part to community resistance to outside medical staff and a lack of access to infected areas.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, the health ministry said Tuesday that two more people had been released from isolation after recovering from Ebola, leaving only one living patient with the disease in the country.

Elsewhere in the region, the Ivory Coast has closed its borders with Guinea and Liberia, just days after Senegal did the same with Guinea, while South Africa has banned entry for non-citizens arriving from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

Ivorian Health Minister Raymonde Goudou Coffie told a press conference in Abidjan that it was "uncanny' that the country has so far no reported cases of Ebola which is ravaging neighbouring Guinea and Liberia.

Peter Piot, the Belgian scientist who co-discovered the Ebola virus in 1976, said on Tuesday a "perfect storm" in west Africa had given the disease a chance to spread unchecked.

"We have never seen an (Ebola) epidemic on this scale," Piot was quoted by the French daily Liberation as saying.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

USA cancel Senegal trip over Ebola fears

LOS ANGELES - USA Basketball has canceled the team's trip to Senegal because of concerns over the deadly Ebola outbreak, federation chairman Jerry Colangelo said Friday.

The men's team, stocked with NBA stars, had been scheduled to visit Africa for the first time on August 27, with a day of basketball clinics, tours and other functions planned in the capital Dakar.

Although Senegal is not one of the countries so far afflicted in West Africa, Colangelo said its position bordering Guinea and Dakar's role as a gateway to West Africa heightened concerns.

"Considering this unprecedented outbreak, USA Basketball has decided to cancel our August 27 scheduled visit to Senegal," Colangelo said. "I speak for everyone at USA Basketball when I say we are extremely disappointed that we will not be able to visit Senegal.

"We will look for opportunities in the future to work with and support the Senegalese national team."

Medical charity MSF said Friday the Ebola epidemic is moving faster than authorities can handle and could take six months to bring under control.

The warning came a day after the World Health Organization said the scale of the epidemic had been vastly underestimated and that "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain the killer disease.

The UN health agency said the death toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola in four decades had now climbed to 1,145 in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

The US team's stop in Dakar was to follow an exhibition game against Slovenia on August 26 on Spain's Gran Canaria island.

The United States open their FIBA World Cup campaign against Finland in Bilbao, Spain, on August 30.

The FIBA World Cup -- formerly the World Championships -- will take place August 30 to September 14.

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Ebola outbreak moving fast, experts warn

GENEVA - The Ebola epidemic is moving faster than the authorities can handle and could take six months to bring under control, the medical charity MSF said Friday.

The warning came a day after the World Health Organization said the scale of the epidemic had been vastly underestimated and that "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain the killer disease.

The UN health agency said the death toll from the worst outbreak of Ebola in four decades had now climbed to 1,069 in the four afflicted West African countries -- Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

"It is deteriorating faster, and moving faster, than we can respond to," Joanne Liu, the chief of Doctors without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF, told reporters in Geneva.

She added that it could take six months to get the upper hand.

"It is like wartime," she said a day after returning from the region. "I don't think we should focus on numbers. To really get a reality check, we're not talking in terms of weeks, but months" to control the epidemic."

WHO said Thursday it was coordinating "a massive scaling up of the international response" to the epidemic.

"Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," it said.

The epidemic erupted in the forested zone straddling the borders of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia earlier this year, and later spread to Nigeria.

WHO declared a global health emergency last week -- far too late, according to MSF, which months ago warned that the outbreak was out of control.

Liu said while Guinea was the initial epicentre of the disease, the pace there has slowed, with fears now focused on the other countries.

"If we don't stabilise Liberia, we'll never stabilise the region," Liu said.

Concerns have also centred on the Nigerian cases, which are in Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa's largest city.

"Right now we have no past experience of Ebola within an urban setting," said Liu.

Athletes barred

As countries around the world stepped up measures to contain the disease, the International Olympics Committee said athletes from Ebola-hit countries had been barred from competing in pool events and combat sports at the Youth Olympics opening in China on Saturday.

The decision, which affects three unidentified athletes, was made "to ensure the safety of all those participating" in the Games in the city of Nanjing, the IOC and Chinese organisers said.

No cure or vaccine is currently available for Ebola, with the WHO authorising the use of largely untested treatments in efforts to combat the disease.

Hard-hit nations are awaiting consignments of up to 1,000 doses of the barely tested drug ZMapp from the United States, which has raised hopes of saving hundreds.

Canada says between 800 and 1,000 doses of a vaccine called VSV-EBOV, which has shown promise in animal research but never been tested on humans, would also be distributed through the WHO.

MSF's Liu warned against focusing on drugs.

"In the short term, they're not going to help that much, because we don't have many drugs available. We need to a get a reality check on how this could impact the curve of the epidemic," she said.

The last days of an Ebola victim can be grim, characterised by agonising muscular pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and catastrophic haemorrhaging described as "bleeding out" as vital organs break down.

The cost of tackling the virus is also threatening to take a severe toll on the already impoverished West African nations hit by the epidemic.

In Nigeria, in particular, a more serious outbreak could severely disrupt its oil and gas industry if international companies are forced to evacuate staff and shut operations, rating agency Moody's has warned.

'Hostility to health workers'

Sierra Leone's chief medical officer Brima Kargbo this week spoke of the risks facing health workers fighting the epidemic, which has killed 32 nurses since May as well as an eminent doctor, a tenth of the country's fatalties.

"We still have to break the chain of transmission to separate the infected from the uninfected," Kargbo said.

Nigerian sex workers also reported suspicion from customers, with business down drastically. One woman in Lagos who gave her name as Bright told AFP that Ebola was "worse than HIV/AIDS. You can prevent HIV by using condoms but you can't do the same with Ebola."

Across the region, draconian travel restrictions have been imposed and a number of airlines have cancelled flights in and out of West Africa.

Guinea, where at least 377 people have died, became the latest country to declare a health emergency, ordering strict controls at border points and a ban on moving bodies from one town to another.

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Asia on alert with thermal cameras, doctors as Ebola declared global risk

BANGKOK - Asian nations are using thermal imaging cameras and posting doctors at airports to screen out sick travellers as health authorities scramble to avert any outbreak of the Ebola virus that has killed almost 1,000 people in West Africa.

The four nations of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone are struggling to combat the world's worst outbreak of Ebola, which has a fatality rate of up to 90 percent, with no known vaccine or cure.

The World Health Organisation declared the West Africa epidemic an "extraordinary event" and an international public health emergency on Friday.

There have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Asia, but health authorities who have battled deadly viruses, such as bird flu and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in recent years, were dusting off the drills used for those outbreaks.

Their measures included infra-red thermal imaging cameras to screen air passengers with fevers and public awareness campaigns. Most countries have told citizens to consider postponing travel to affected areas.

Asia's efforts to screen visitors were adequate, said Tarik Jasarevic, a WHO spokesman based in Geneva.

"As long as a person is not visibly sick we think it's fine for them to be in public," he told Reuters by telephone. "We consider the risk for international spread quite low. The measures countries in Asia have taken are appropriate."

Health officials in Thailand, which received a record 26.5 million tourists last year, are monitoring 21 visitors from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The officials said they had no plans to quarantine the visitors.

"They are free to move but we are checking in on them frequently," said Opart Karnkawinpong, a disease control official at Thailand's Ministry of Public Health.

"We have surveillance cameras in place at major entry points and doctors at international airports to supplement existing teams."

MEASURES IN PLACE

The Ebola virus is only transmitted through contact with the body fluids of someone with symptoms, which initially include muscle pains and joint aches, then worsen to vomiting, diarrhoea and internal and external bleeding in the final stages.

In China, there were no reports of Ebola cases but hospitals have been told to report any suspected cases.

India, which has nearly 45,000 citizens living and working in the four affected countries, said it would screen travellers passing through, or starting journeys there, when they returned.

"The surveillance system would be geared up to track these travellers for four weeks and detect them early, in case they develop symptoms," Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told parliament on Wednesday.

Japan is ready to send suspected Ebola victims to special isolation hospitals, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.

In Australia, authorities said they had not taken extra steps but airports were on alert for sick travellers, saying the risk of the disease reaching the country was "very low".

Officials in Singapore said the city state, praised for its tough measures against the SARS outbreak that claimed 33 lives in 2003, also faced only a low threat from the Ebola virus.

"Measures are already in place to carry out contact tracing and quarantine all close contacts if there is a case," the health ministry said.

In Thailand, health official Opart said the 21 travellers would stay under observation for the entire incubation period, which can last up to 21 days.

"Even though Ebola is only a small risk to Thailand we are not taking any chances," he said.

(Additional reporting by Thuy Ong in SYDNEY, Rachel Armstrong in SINGAPORE, Aung Hla Tun in YANGON, Kaori Kaneko in TOKYO and Nita Bhalla of the Thomson Reuters Foundation in NEW DELHI; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Saudi suspects case of Ebola infection

RIYADH - Doctors in Saudi Arabia are testing a patient suspected of having contracted Ebola during a trip to West Africa, hit by an epidemic of the virus, the health ministry said Tuesday.

The Saudi man was admitted to hospital in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after showing symptoms of haemorrhagic fever upon his return from Sierra Leone.

The patient, in his 40s, is in critical condition and has symptoms "similar to that of Ebola infection."

Ebola-like symptoms include fever, vomiting, severe headaches and muscular pain and, in the final stages, profuse bleeding.

The UN World Health Organisation said Monday that at least 887 people have died from Ebola since the beginning of the year, after the virus spread across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In April, Saudi Arabia announced a ban on visas for Muslims in the three West African nations wishing to perform the pilgrimage to the Muslim holy sites there.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com