The World Bank says the fight to stop Ebola is being lost, as the UN pleads for more money to combat the escalating epidemic and global travel fears mount.
As the death toll from the world's worst-ever outbreak of the virus shot past 4500, a glimmer of hope came from Senegal on Friday as it was declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization.
The United States, meanwhile, named an 'Ebola tsar' to co-ordinate 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 on Friday 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, 4555 people have died from Ebola out of a total of 9216 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 the infection rate could hit 10,000 a week by early December.
The United Nations says it has received less than 40 per cent of the nearly $US1 billion ($A1.08 billion) it asked for to fight Ebola.
One trust fund set up to help has just $US100,000, despite $US20 million in pledges - a situation UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said had left 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.
Despite enhanced checks at airports in several countries, fears mounted, and Air France flight attendants called for an end to flights to Guinea.
France will on Saturday start checking on travellers from Guinea. The United States, Britain and Canada have already launched screenings for passengers from Ebola-hit zones. The EU is reviewing the matter.
In the US, authorities were still facing questions about how the disease - which kills around 70 per cent of those it infects in West Africa - had spread at a Texas hospital.
Other questions surfaced about the safety protocols for those who came in contact either with a Liberian man who died 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 Caribbean cruise ship.
Although she is considered at 'very low risk' of infection, according to Carnival Cruise Lines, the ship was apparently denied entry in Belize and Mexico, and was headed back to Texas.
The WHO is ramping up 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 will send more than 600 health workers to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Health authorities held up Senegal as a shining example 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.
Posted by Unknown on Sunday, October 19, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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