Flight carrying the first of two US Ebola patients evacuated from West Africa lands in the United States

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is spreading faster than efforts to
control it, World Health Organization (WHO) head Margaret Chan has
said.
She told a summit of regional leaders that failure to contain Ebola
could be "catastrophic" in terms of lives lost.

But she said the virus, which has claimed 728 lives in Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone since February, could be stopped if well managed.

Ebola kills up to 90% of those infected.

It spreads by contact with infected blood, bodily fluids, organs - or
contaminated environments. Patients have a better chance of survival
if they receive early treatment.

Initial flu-like symptoms can lead to external haemorrhaging from the
eyes and gums, and internal bleeding that can lead to organ failure.

A US relief agency is repatriatingtwo of its American staff who have
contracted the virus in Liberia.

A flight carrying the first of the patients - Dr Kent Brantly - landed
at and US Air Force base in Georgia at about 16:00 GMT.

Hundreds of US Peace Corps volunteers have already been evacuated from
the West African countries.

Separately, US President Barack Obama announced that delegates from
affected countries attending a US-Africa conference in Washington next
week would be screened.

"Folks who are coming from these countries that have even a marginal
risk, or an infinitesimal risk of having been exposed in some fashion,
we're making sure we're doing screening," he said.

Friday's summit should provide the kind of international co-operation
needed to fight Ebola but the battle against the virus will be won or
lost at the local level. An over-attentive family member, a careless
moment while burying a victim, a slip-up by medical staff coping with
stress and heat - a single small mistake in basic hygiene can allow
the virus to slip from one human host to another.

The basic techniques for stopping Ebola are well known. The problem is
applying them. Since the virus was first identified in 1976, there
have been dozens of outbreaks and all of them have been contained.
Experts point to these successes as evidence that this latest threat
can be overcome too.

But working against them are suspicions among local people and the
unavoidable fact that this is an extremely poor part of the world,
much of it still reeling from conflict. Deploying the right equipment
in properly trained hands is always going to be a struggle, one that
is now extremely urgent.