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 The epidemic, the worst since the disease was discovered in 1976,
has killed some 2,100 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and
Nigeria and has also spread to Senegal.
The WHO believes it will take six to nine months to contain and may
infect up to 20,000 people. In Liberia, the disease has already
killed 1,089 people - more than half of all deaths reported since
March in this regional epidemic.
"Transmission of the Ebola virus in Liberia is already intense and
the number of new cases is increasing exponentially," the U.N.
agency said in a statement. "The number of new cases is moving far
faster than the capacity to manage them in Ebola-specific treatment
centers."
Fourteen of Liberia's 15 counties have reported confirmed cases. As
soon as a new Ebola treatment center is opened, it immediately
overflows with patients.
"In Monrovia, taxis filled with entire families, of whom some
members are thought to be infected with the Ebola virus, crisscross
the city, searching for a treatment bed. There are none," it said.
In Montserrado County, which includes the capital Monrovia and is
home to more than one million people, a WHO investigative team
estimated that 1,000 beds are urgently needed for Ebola patients,
the statement said.
Motorbike-taxis and regular taxis have become "a hot source" of
Ebola transmission.
Liberia's government announced on Monday it was extending a
nationwide nighttime curfew imposed last month to curb the spread of
the disease.
Sierra Leone last week ordered a four-day countrywide "lockdown"
starting Sept. 18 as part of tougher efforts to halt the spread of
Ebola.
INTERNATIONAL MOBILISATION
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called British Prime Minster
David Cameron, France's President François Hollande, Cuban President
Raul Castro and Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European
Council, to urge more support, his spokesman said.
While governments and organizations across the world are scrambling
cash and supplies to the region, the WHO said its aid partners must
scale up efforts by three- to fourfold to battle the epidemic.
Conventional control measures were "not having an adequate impact"
in Liberia, it said.
Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever spread through the blood, sweat or
vomit of those infected, making those working directly with the sick
among the most vulnerable to the disease.
In a country with just one doctor for nearly 100,000 inhabitants
before the outbreak, some 152 health care workers have been infected
and 79 have died in Liberia since the crisis began, the WHO said.
The United States said on Monday will send a 25-bed field hospital
to Liberia to help provide medical care for health workers there.
Britain earlier said it would send military and humanitarian experts
to set up a treatment center for Ebola victims in Sierra Leone.
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Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres welcomed the move by the
British government but voiced fears the disease was moving
"catastrophically" through the population. Resources needed to be
deployed on the ground more quickly, it said.
The WHO said on Monday that one of its doctors working in an Ebola
treatment center in Sierra Leone had tested positive for the disease
and would be evacuated from Freetown shortly. It was the second
WHO-deployed staff member to contract the virus after a Senegalese
epidemiologist was infected last month.
ECONOMIES THREATENED
Chief executives of 11 firms in the region joined the call for world
leaders to step up the fight against the disease, warning on Monday
that it threatened the region's stability.
"Without the support of the international community the situation
for these economies, many of whom are only beginning to return to
stability after decades of civil war, will be even more
catastrophic," they said in a statement.
Signatories of the statement included chief executives from
ArcelorMittal, Randgold Resources, London Mining, IAMGOLD, Newmont,
Aureus Mining, and Hummingbird Resources.
Exxon Mobil meanwhile donated $150,000 to the Liberian National Red
Cross Society.
Meanwhile, an emergency meeting of health ministers and other
officials from African Union member states agreed in the Ethiopian
capital Addis Ababa on Monday to lift restrictions on travel to and
from countries affected by Ebola.
A number of African nations introduced travel bans and border
closures in recent months despite WHO warnings that the measures
risk creating food and supply shortages.
"It was agreed that countries should lift travel bans and allow
people to move between members states and allow trade but to put
proper measures for screening," Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the African
Union's chairperson, said after the meeting.
"We expect them (all member countries of the 54-nation bloc)to
implement (the decision) as agreed," she told journalists.
(Additional reporting by Bate Felix in Dakar, Aaron Maasho in Addis
Ababa, David Alexander in Washington, and Alphonso Toweh and Jame
Giahyue in Monrovia; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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