Steven Spielberg, Justin Bieber and Bill Gates are among many celebrities pouring buckets of ice water over their heads and donating to fight Lou Gehrig's disease, in a fundraising effort that has gone viral.

Since June, several thousand people worldwide have recorded themselves getting drenched, then posted the stunt online and challenged others to do the same, or pledge $100 to ALS research.

Vietnam and Myanmar are testing three patients for the deadly Ebola virus after they arrived in the Southeast Asian nations from Africa suffering fever, health officials said.

Two Nigerians were sent to Ho Chi Minh City's Tropical Diseases Hospital for isolation after they arrived in the city by plane, Vietnam's health ministry said, adding that they did not have symptoms other than fever.

Liberia said Tuesday it had found 17 Ebola patients who had fled an attack on their clinic, sparking a panicked manhunt across a city in the throes of a seemingly unstoppable epidemic.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, said the tropical virus had killed 84 people in just three days, a surge that has pushed the overall death toll from the west African outbreak to 1,229.

The World Health Organization said Monday that it had set up a task force with the global airline and tourism industry in an effort to contain the spread of Ebola.

The U.N. agency said it was working hand in hand with the International Civil Aviation Organization, the World Tourism Organization, Airports Council International (ACI), the International Air Transport Association and the World Travel and Tourism Council.

An unusually deadly outbreak of polio in 2010 in the Democratic Republic of Congo was linked Monday to a mutated form of the virus which common vaccines may not prevent.

The outbreak of polio infected 445 people and killed 47 percent of them, a rate much higher than a six percent death rate seen during an outbreak in Tajikistan the same year.

Ever felt like your neighbor's antics could drive you to an early grave?

Well, there may be reason for concern, said researchers who reported a link Tuesday between having good neighbors and a healthier heart.

Sierra Leone on Monday urged caution over the use of experimental drugs to combat Ebola as the United Nations launched an $18 million appeal to help the country cope with the epidemic.

Health Minister Miatta Kargbo told journalists that the country was following advice from the World Health Organization, which was "lukewarm" about using untested serums.

Liberia was desperately searching for 17 Ebola patients Monday who fled an attack on a quarantine center in capital Monrovia, as the outbreak appeared to overwhelm authorities in west Africa's worst-hit nation.

Searches of the teeming West Point slum have so far failed to turn up any of the missing victims as neighboring Guinea said a wave of sick Liberians had begun crossing the border, which it had officially closed 10 days ago.

EU border agency Frontex said Monday it had suspended flights taking migrants back to Nigeria, one of the west African countries hit by the worst-ever Ebola outbreak.

"We have decided to indefinitely suspend those flights that we coordinate", and co-finance, to Nigeria, Frontex spokeswoman Ewa Moncure told Agence France Presse.

Liberian officials fear Ebola could soon spread through the capital's largest slum after residents raided a quarantine center for suspected patients and took items including bloody sheets and mattresses.

The violence in the West Point slum occurred late Saturday and was led by residents angry that patients were brought to the holding center from other parts of Monrovia, Tolbert Nyenswah, assistant health minister, said Sunday.