The World Health Organisation is reviewing Ebola preparedness in 15 African countries, to prevent the disease from spreading across the continent, a senior WHO official says.
The UN health agency is focusing especially on countries bordering the three Ebola-affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, WHO's Isabelle Nuttall said on Thursday.
"They really need to be better prepared," she said about Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali and Cote d'Ivoire.
WHO experts will work with authorities to train and equip health staff, and to get response teams in place that can identify new cases, isolate them and trace the path of transmission.
The other priority countries have been identified by WHO because of their strong trade and transport ties to the region, or because of their weak health systems.
They are: Benin, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan and Togo.
Nuttall stressed that many of these countries have already been preparing against Ebola.
The number of Ebola cases in the three hardest-hit countries will surpass 9000 this week, with the number expected to double every four weeks, Nuttall said. The number of deaths will climb above 4500 this week, she added.
In Sierra Leone, Ebola spread to the last untouched district of Koinadugu, a local Ebola task force co-ordinator said.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the trust fund he launched to raise a billion dollars to fight against the Ebola virus has only $US100,000 ($A108,195) in it, calling the situation "a very serious problem".
The UN trust fund initially raised $US20 million from money donated by major Western countries, but the funds stopped coming, Ban told reporters in New York.
Ban called on the international community to provide money and enable his organisation "to get ahead of the curve and meet our target of reducing the rate of transmission by December 1".
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