Ebola outbreak 'underestimated'

The numbers of reported Ebola virus cases and deaths "vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," the UN agency said on its website on Thursday.

The death toll from the world's worst outbreak of Ebola, first identified in March, has reached more than 1,060 from 1,975 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, the agency said.

The vast majority were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia while there have also been several deaths in Nigeria.

Several airlines have suspended flights to infected countries, however the WHO has emphasized that "air travel, even from Ebola-affected countries, is low risk for Ebola transmission" because the virus is not airborne.

Meanwhile, health officials in Liberia have received doses of an experimental Ebola treatment drug from the United States called ZMapp. The drug has already been administered to two infected American aid workers. A Spanish priest who had also begun taking the experimental drug became the first European to succumb to the virus this year when he died on Tuesday.

The highly contagious virus is a form of hemorrhagic fever that can cause severe fever, unstoppable bleeding and organ failure. There is no Ebola vaccine.

hc/lw (AFP, Reuters, AP, dpa)