David Cameron and other western leaders have recognised the need to do far more and far quicker to deal with the spread of Ebola after holding crisis talks.
The epidemic dominated a 75-minute conference call last night involving the Prime Minister and US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
More than 4,000 people have already died in West Africa and concerns over efforts to prevent a wider global outbreak were fuelled when it emerged a second person to catch Ebola in the US had taken a flight with 132 others the day before suffering symptoms.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said: "Leaders agreed this was the most serious international public health emergency in recent years and that the international community needed to do much more and faster to halt the rise of the disease in the region. Each leader set out what they are doing to help the countries affected and then discussions focused on how to improve co-ordination of the international effort and to work together to address the most urgent priorities: increasing the amount of international spending on the issue; increasing the number of trained personnel working in the region to treat those affected and prevent the disease spreading; and evacuation procedures for workers affected."
The call came amid new fears about US efforts to control the spread of Ebola after two nurses flew on separate commercial flights the day before they were diagnosed with the disease.
Officials are trying to trace 132 passengers who shared a cabin of a flight with a nurse from Texas who was found to have the disease the following day. The plane was travelling from Cleveland to Dallas Fort Worth airport on Monday.
Another nurse, Amber Vinson, 29, who contracted Ebola, flew from Ohio to Dallas with a temperature before she was diagnosed this week.The hospital worker was involved in the care of a Liberian man who died of the disease last week at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
Crew members on the plane said the nurse showed no symptoms of Ebola.
Mr Cameron is due to convene another meeting of the emergency committee, Cobra, this morning.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article