The U.N.'s new pointman on Ebola said Monday the fight against the epidemic was a "war" which could take another six months, and warned that airlines boycotting the region were hampering the response.

David Nabarro, a British physician the United Nations has appointed to coordinate the global response to the crisis, was in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown for the fifth day of a tour of the region.

When Niki Quasney felt a piercing pain in her ribcage in March, the oncologist treating her advanced ovarian cancer told her to get to an emergency room immediately.

But instead of making the short drive to a hospital near her home in Munster, Indiana, she drove alone for more than 40 minutes to one in neighboring Illinois. Quasney said she was "terrified" her local hospital might not allow her and her partner of more than 13 years, whom she wed last year in another state, to be together if she suffered a health emergency.

Sixteen tonnes of medical equipment donated by the U.S. government arrived on Sunday in Liberia, which has tallied the highest death toll in the West African epidemic.

Kai Olsen, from the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the shipment included plastic sheeting to build temporary shelters and water purification kits.

E-cigarettes should be subject to the same regulations as cigarettes and should not be sold to minors, the American Heart Association (AHA) said in new policy guidelines out Monday.

The use of e-cigarettes, which are electrical devices that heat flavored nicotine liquid into a vapor that is inhaled, much like traditional cigarettes but without the smoke, has been rising rapidly among youths in recent years, raising concerns about the potential for addiction risks and health damage.

Tokyo stands ready to offer an experimental drug developed by a Japanese company to help stem the global tide of the deadly Ebola virus, the top government spokesman said Monday.

"Our country is prepared to provide the yet-to-be approved drug in cooperation with the manufacturer if the WHO requests," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.

The World Health Organization on Sunday announced the first Ebola infection among its experts, describing the infected person as an epidemiologist who had been deployed to Sierra Leone.

The WHO did not provide information about the sex, age or nationality of the person but said the patient was "receiving the best care possible."

The United Nations vowed Saturday to play a "strong role" in helping Liberia and its neighbors fight the deadly outbreak of Ebola in west Africa, which it said could take months to bring it under control.

Liberia has been particularly hard hit by the epidemic that has swept relentlessly across the region since March, accounting for almost half of the 1,427 deaths.

Is there a limit to how old humans could one day become?

French researchers trying to answer the age-old question said they found evidence in two categories of people who lived long lives of a "biological barrier" to living forever.

The death toll from the Ebola outbreak sweeping through west African countries has risen to 1,427 out of more than 2,600 cases, the World Health Organization said Friday.

The latest tally, which counts the number of victims from March when the deadly disease first reared its head to August 20, found that 77 people had succumbed to the virus on Tuesday and Wednesday. The previous death toll was 1,350.

Every region of Liberia has now been hit by Ebola, officials said Friday, as the World Health Organization warned the fight against the worst-ever outbreak of the killer disease would take months.

After seeing people fall to the deadly virus in area after area, Liberia said two people had succumbed to the virus in Sinoe province, the last Ebola-free bastion in a country that has seen the biggest toll with 624 deaths.