Ebola death toll passes 1,500

Ebola-hit nations met for crisis talks yesterday as the death toll topped 1,500 and the World Health Organization warned that the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the outbreak is stemmed.

Nigeria announced that the virus had reached its oil-producing hub, dashing hopes that the country had successfully contained it to its biggest city, Lagos.

Hopes were raised meanwhile of a vaccine for the haemmorhagic fever after British medical charity the Wellcome Trust and pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline said safety trials on a new drug could begin as soon as next month.

But new figures from the WHO showed the scale of the crisis. It said it was working on an assumption that it would take six to nine months to bring the epidemic under control, by which time the number of infections could have passed 20,000.

As of August 26, 1,552 people had been confirmed dead from Ebola in four countries -- Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria -- while 3,062 had been infected.