Ebola epidemic "vastly" underestimated: WHO

The UN's health agency said Thursday that the scale of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been vastly underestimated and "extraordinary measures" were needed to contain the disease.
      
As the official toll climbed to 1,069, according to World Health Organisation, the United States ordered the evacuation of diplomats' families from Sierra Leone, one of the three countries at the epicentre of the outbreak along with Liberia and Guinea.
      
The Geneva-based WHO said in a statement it was coordinating "a massive scaling up of the international response", in a bid to tackle the worst epidemic of haemorrhagic fever-causing virus since its discovery four decades ago.
      
"Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," it said.
      
"The outbreak is expected to continue for some time. WHO's operational response plan extends over the next several months," the organisation warned.        

A serious outbreak in Lagos, where the epidemic claimed a fourth victim on Thursday, could severely disrupt the oil and gas industry in Nigeria if international companies are forced to evacuate staff and local operations are shut down, the Moody's rating agency warned.
      
Any "decline in production would quickly translate into economic and fiscal deterioration," said Matt Robinson, senior credit officer at Moody's.
      
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama called President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Sierra Leone's leader Ernest Bai Koromo.
      
The calls came as the US State Department ordered families of its diplomats in Sierra Leone to leave the country to...