US regulators meanwhile loosened restrictions on another experimental drug which may allow it to be tried on infected patients in west Africa.
Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.
US health authorities have warned Ebola’s spread to the United States was “inevitable” due to the nature of global airline travel, but that any large outbreak was unlikely.
Fukuda agreed, telling AFP that while Ebola cases could pop up outside the main affected area, it was unlikely the virus would spread much.
“If you have health systems, you have awareness, you are ready for it, this is something that you can stop,” he stressed.
First discovered in 1976 and named after a river in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ebola has killed around two-thirds of those infected, with two outbreaks registering fatality rates approaching 90 percent. The latest outbreak has a fatality rate of around 55-60 percent.[eap_ad_3]