Ebola crisis: Five ways to break the epidemic

With the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola revealing woefully inadequate health systems in West Africa, especially in those countries recovering from civil war, the international response and leadership of the World Health Organization (WHO) has also come in for criticism.

Announcing US plans, President Barack Obama said the outbreak was "a threat to global security" which required a "global response".
So, what would bring the epidemic under control? Here are five things officials say would help:

1) More treatment centres

All agree this is key as the real number of cases is believed to be much higher than the 4,366 recorded.
Victims in Liberia - the country worst-affected by Ebola - are spreading the virus, some dying on the streets, because there is not enough room at isolation clinics set up to treat infected patients.
President Obama's plan to send 3,000 troops to build 17 healthcare facilities and train health workers has been met with some relief, especially in Liberia where most of this deployment will go.
But it may take weeks before the first US beds are operational, and the WHO has confirmed that there are no free beds anywhere in Liberia at present.

People with Ebola symptoms in Liberia cannot get beds in centres dealing with the virus

The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has urged other countries to "deploy their civil defence and military assets, and medical teams, to contain the epidemic".
Last week, the UK announced it would set up a 65-bed treatment centre for infected medical staff in Sierra Leone, and France has put a team of about 20 experts on rotation to Guinea.
But Philippe Maughan, who works for Echo, the humanitarian aid branch of the European Commission, thinks MSF's expectations may be too high.
"If it thinks there is a sort of foreign legion ready to deploy for this outbreak, there isn't," Dr Maughan says.
"Ebola is a very specific virus for which even specialists in infectious diseases are not necessarily skilled."