US$100m Ebola emergency response plan unveiled by WHO's Margaret Chan

The World Health Organisation is launching a US$100 million response plan to combat an "unprecedented" outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, director general Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun said yesterday.

Chan will meet in Conakry, Guinea today with the presidents of affected West African nations to take the response against the disease to "a new level". The WHO had identified the need for "several hundred more personnel" to be deployed in affected countries, Chan said in an appeal to donor countries.

Meanwhile, inquiries by multinational firms and non-government organisations about the outbreak increased fourfold in the past month, an emergency service provider said. Some concerned evacuating staff.

Watch: What is the Ebola virus?

About 20,000 Chinese people - including workers from at least two Hong Kong-based companies and two doctors from the city - are in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the three countries yesterday hit 1,323, including 729 deaths.

Sierra Leone yesterday declared a state of emergency over the crisis, quarantining Ebola-hit areas, banning all non-Ebola-related public meetings and deploying security forces to protect medical workers.