The Obama administration is ramping up its response to West Africa's Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the afflicted region to supply medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local health care systems and to boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.

President Barack Obama planned to announce the stepped up effort Tuesday during a visit to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta amid alarm that the outbreak could spread and that the deadly virus could mutate into a more easily transmitted disease.

The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on the Ebola crisis Thursday to find ways to scale up the global response to the epidemic, the U.S. ambassador announced.

"It is crucial that council members discuss the status of the epidemic, confer on a coordinated international response and begin the process of marshaling our collective resources to stop the spread of the disease," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said Monday.

Venezuela's chronic shortages have begun to encroach on a cultural cornerstone: the boob job.

Beauty-obsessed Venezuelans face a scarcity of brand-name breast implants, and women are so desperate that they and their doctors are turning to devices that are the wrong size or made in China, with less rigorous quality standards.

A fourth Sierra Leonean doctor, a woman, died Sunday after contracting the dreaded Ebola virus, a top health official said, while a Dutch charity repatriated two doctors suspected of having been contaminated with the disease.

Doctor Olive Buck, who was in charge of Lumley Government Hospital in the Sierra Leonean capital, tested positive for Ebola on Tuesday and was admitted to the Connaught Hospital in central Freetown.

Scientists said Sunday they had invented a device that uses a magnet to extract bacteria, fungi and toxins from blood, potentially throwing a lifeline to patients with sepsis and other infections.

The external gadget -- tested so far in rats but not yet humans -- could be adapted one day for stripping Ebola and other viruses from blood, they hoped.

Health Minister Wael Abu Faour stressed on Monday that there are no fatal Ebola cases recorded in Lebanon, and that the person brought in from the Democratic Republic of Congo has died of asthma, media reports said.

“There are no fatal cases of the Ebola virus in Lebanon. The person that was brought to Lebanon from Congo has died of asthma,” clarified Abu Faour.

The worst-ever Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,400 people, the U.N. said Friday, as Cuba pledged the largest foreign medical team deployed so far in the west African health crisis.

World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan warned the spiraling epidemic of the murderous tropical virus demanded a stronger, faster response from the international community.

Officials at the Nebraska Medical Center where an American aid worker infected with Ebola is being treated say the patient is getting his appetite back.

Dr. Rick Sacra was flown to the Omaha, Nebraska, hospital on Sept. 5 for treatment in the hospital's specialized 10-bed isolation unit.

For nearly four decades, mention of the Ebola virus has evoked death and terror, yet a simple factor -- money -- has stood in the way of erasing the curse, experts say.

Despite its evil reputation, Ebola breaks out only rarely in brief if murderous spurts in impoverished African countries.

The head of a Taiwanese company at the centre of a widening food safety scandal has been detained for selling hundreds of tonnes of "gutter oil" that caused mass product recalls, authorities said Saturday.

Yeh Wen-hsiang, chairman of Chang Guann Co, was taken into custody early Saturday on suspicion of fraud, officials said, deeming him a flight risk and fearing he could collude with other suspects or destroy evidence.