A man washes his hands as a preventive measure against the Ebola virus on a street in Monrovia, September 13, 2014. 
 
 A look at the new generation of robot technology. 
 
 DAKAR (Reuters) - Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has appealed to U.S. President Barack Obama for urgent aid in tackling the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, saying that without it her country would lose the fight against the disease. 
 
 The outbreak, which was first discovered in March, has now killed more than 2,400 people mostly in Liberia, neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone, as understaffed and poorly resourced West African healthcare systems have been overrun. 
 
 The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the epidemic is spreading exponentially in Liberia, where more than half of the deaths have been recorded. It has said that thousands are at risk of contagion in the coming weeks. 
 
 Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has set up several treatment centres in the affected countries but has also repeatedly warned it has reached the limits of its capacity and appealed for foreign governments to intervene. 
 
 In a letter dated September 9 seen by Reuters, Johnson Sirleaf appealed to Obama to build and operate at least one Ebola treatment unit in the capital Monrovia, saying that U.S. civilian and military teams had experience in dealing with biological hazards. 
 
 With the Liberian government due to open a 100-bed treatment centre and MSF scaling up its Ebola facility in Monrovia to 400 beds, Johnson Sirleaf said there was still a shortfall of 1,000 beds in the capital as well as a need for 10 new centres in the rest of the country. 
 
 "Without more direct help from your government, we will lose this battle against Ebola," Johnson Sirleaf, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work on women's rights, wrote to Obama. 
 
 The U.S. government has committed around $100 million to tackle the outbreak by providing protective equipment for healthcare workers, food, water, medical and hygiene equipment. 
 
 The U.S. military said this week it would build a 25-bed field hospital in Liberia to care for infected health workers but it would hand this to Liberians to run. 
 
 On Friday, the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia Deborah Malac said Washington would train security forces in isolation operations, after a boy was shot dead last month when Liberian soldiers opened fire on a crowd protesting at a quarantine in a Monrovia neighbourhood. 
 
 WORST THREAT SINCE CIVIL WAR 
 
 Liberian officials have called the outbreak the greatest threat to national stability since a 1989-2003 civil war, which killed nearly 250,000 people. Many ordinary people in Liberia, a nation founded by descendants of freed American slaves, look for help to the United States. 
 
 Cuba on Friday announced that it would deploy 165 medical personnel to Sierra Leone next month, the largest contingent of foreign doctors and nurses committed so far. 
 
 Johnson Sirleaf said that Ebola treatment centres were full and were being forced to turn away the sick. 
 
 "We are sending them home where they are a risk to their families and the communities. I am being honest with you when I say that at this rate, we will never break the transmission chain and the virus will overwhelm us," she wrote. 
 
 "Only governments like yours have the resources and assets to deploy at the pace required to arrest the spread," Johnson Sirleaf wrote to Obama, a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate. 
 
 In a country with large numbers of unemployed former child soldiers, Johnson Sirleaf said the outbreak threatened civil order. With healthcare workers staying away from work, after dozens of their colleagues contracted the virus, citizens were also dying of other, treatable illnesses, she said. 
 
 Johnson Sirleaf asked the United States to assist in restoring services in at least 10 non-Ebola hospitals. Liberia also asked for U.S. help in establishing an air bridge to transport personnel and equipment after all but two private airlines have cancelled their flights. 
 
 (Editing by Dominic Evans) ||||| (CNN) -- Hundreds dead. Many more infected. Pervasive fear and denial are challenging authorities in west Africa who are trying to assess and address the Ebola crisis. 
 
 So far, it has killed more than 650 people, says Doctors Without Borders. 
 
 That's the highest death toll the World Health Organization has recorded in an Ebola outbreak. And it's getting worse. 
 
 The swelling numbers prompted heads of state to cancel travel plans on Thursday to direct their full attention toward fighting the outbreak of the virus that has crippled parts of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and stirred palpable concerns that it will spread around the region and the world. 
 
 Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koroma both canceled trips to the United States, and Koroma declared a state of emergency. 
 
 He announced a action plan that addressed many of the barriers international medical workers complain they face while fighting disease. 
 
 Some residents in affected villages have accused them of bringing the disease into the country and have barricaded their towns or otherwise blocked access to Ebola hemorrhagic fever victims. 
 
 A nurse with Doctors Without Borders, Monia Sayah, told CNN, "the most challenging" aspect of trying to help people is that "we go into communities where we are not necessarily welcome," because people don't want to believe they or their loved ones have Ebola -- in part because "they understand now that the survival rate is not very high." 
 
 Koroma said he will deploy police and military to accompany the aid workers. 
 
 They will search house to house for the infirm and enforce orders designed to curb the virus' spread. 
 
 What is the risk of catching Ebola on a plane? 
 
 Aid groups pull out 
 
 "The matter has reached a crisis point," Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown told CNN's Richard Quest. "...The dire prognosis is that it will get worse before it gets better." 
 
 The dangers are so real that some humanitarian organizations are pulling out to protect their own. 
 
 Samaritan's Purse -- an international evangelical Christian humanitarian agency -- and the missionary group Serving in Mission have recalled all nonessential personnel from Liberia. 
 
 The Peace Corps announced Wednesday it is doing the same, removing its 340 volunteers from that country, as well as Sierra Leone and Guinea. 
 
 While there are no confirmed cases, a spokeswoman for the agency did say that two volunteers did come in contact with someone who ended up dying from the virus. 
 
 Those Americans haven't shown signs of Ebola but are being isolated just in case, with the spokeswoman saying they can't return home until they get medical clearance to do so. 
 
 American dies 
 
 One American, 40-year-old Patrick Sawyer, died in a Nigerian hospital earlier this month -- having come from Liberia, where he was a top Ministry of Finance official, and before he could go back home to Minnesota to celebrate his daughters' birthdays. 
 
 But the vast majority of those afflicted are Africans. They come from big cities and small villages, some of them falling ill without really knowing what hit them. 
 
 "This epidemic is without precedent," said Bart Janssens, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, a group also known as Médecins Sans Frontières. "It's absolutely not under control, and the situation keeps worsening." 
 
 As of now, the outbreak has been confined to west Africa. But there are rising concerns that it could spread, especially since a person may not know they have Ebola or show symptoms for two to 21 days after being infected. 
 
 Sawyer, for example, collapsed getting off a plane in Lagos, Nigeria. He very well could have made it out of the region, perhaps to the United States, before showing symptoms of Ebola; it's only then that the virus spreads. 
 
 To further complicate matters, signs of Ebola include fever, headaches, weakness and vomiting -- symptoms that also define many other ailments, from malaria to the flu that Brown notes often pop up "at this time of year." 
 
 For all these reasons and more, Janssens says, "If the situation does not improve fairly quickly, there is a real risk for new countries to be affected." 
 
 Could outbreak spread to U.S.? 
 
 2 infected Americans 
 
 Ebola spreads through the transmission of bodily fluids. Those most at risk are loved ones of those infected, as well as health care workers tending to the ill. 
 
 Sawyer is believed to have been infected by his ailing sister, who he spent time with in Liberia -- even though neither likely knew she had Ebola -- according to Brown. 
 
 Then there are those like Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, who fell ill early last week while overseeing Ebola treatment at a Sierra Leone hospital and died days later. 
 
 Two Americans affiliated with Samaritan's Purse who also were infected "have shown a slight improvement in the past 24 hours" though both are in serious condition, according to the Christian humanitarian agency. 
 
 One of them is Dr. Kent Brantly, a 33-year-old who last lived in Fort Worth, Texas. He has been the medical director for the Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia, Liberia, where he has been providing care for Ebola patients since October. After testing positive for the virus, Brantly went into treatment at ELWA Hospital. 
 
 The other is Charlotte, North Carolina, resident Nancy Writebol, a Serving in Mission member working with Samaritan's Purse to help fight the Ebola outbreak. 
 
 Ebola fears hit close to home 
 
 It is believed one of the local staff was infected with Ebola and came to work with the virus on July 21 and 22, Samaritan's Purse Vice President Ken Isaacs said. That staff member died Thursday. 
 
 "We think it was in the scrub-down area where the disease was passed to both Nancy and Kent," he said. 
 
 Brown, the Liberian information minister, noted Brantly and Writebol's fight in his CNN interview, as well as Liberia's need for more health care workers like them. 
 
 "We join the families in prayers that they can come through this and become ... shining examples that, if care is taken, one can come out of this." 
 
 Liberian president: 'Ebola kills' 
 
 On Monday, the CDC issued an alert warning travelers to avoid hospitals with Ebola patients and funerals for those patients in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea due to the outbreak. 
 
 The United States is considering raising the alert to discourage "nonessential" travel to those three countries, a spokesman said. 
 
 Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has told the Ministry of Health to consider quarantines in some areas and cremating bodies in an attempt to prevent further infection, according to Brown. 
 
 The president also urged residents to avoid public amusement and entertainment areas, and set aside Friday "for the disinfection and chlorination of all public facilities." 
 
 "My fellow Liberians, Ebola is real. Ebola is contagious. And Ebola kills," Sirleaf said. "All of us must all take extra measures announced by the Ministry of Health to keep ourselves safe. 
 
 "The government will do its part. But you must do yours." 
 
 READ: Ebola doctor in Sierra Leone dies 
 
 READ: What you need to know 
 
 CNN's Jonathan Helman, Elise Labott, Pamela Brown and Nana Karikari-apau contributed to this report. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 Declaring his cure a miracle, a doctor infected with the Ebola virus while working to save patients in West Africa walked out of an Atlanta hospital on Thursday. Hospital officials said they released a colleague quietly on Tuesday at her request. 
 
 "Today is a miraculous day. I am thrilled to be alive, to be well and to be reunited with my family," Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, of Christian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse, told a news conference. 
 
 Nancy Writebol, 59, an aid worker who also contracted Ebola while doing missionary aid work in Liberia, was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday, according to Emory and the aid group SIM. She is spending private time with her husband. "As she walked out of her isolation room, all she could say was 'To God be the glory,'" Brantly said. 
 
 Brantly, who clutched the hand of his wife, Amber, before speaking, said he would be spending a month in private with his family before sharing any more of his story. "But for now we need some time together after a month apart," he said. 
 
 "Please do not stop praying for the people of Liberia and West Africa and for an end to this Ebola epidemic," Brantly pleaded in a brief statement. He hugged his doctors and nurses as he left, and officials at Emory and the CDC emphasized that the patients pose no risk to public health. 
 
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 “After a rigorous course of treatment and testing, the Emory Healthcare team has determined that both patients have recovered from the Ebola virus and can return to their families and community without concern for spreading this infection to others,” Dr. Bruce Ribner, director of Emory’s Infectious Disease Unit, said at the news conference. 
 
 "We understand that there are a lot of questions and concerns about the Ebola virus and the infection that is causes. However we cannot let our fears dictate our actions," Ribner added. "We don't think he's contagious." 
 
 Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse, said Thursday that he had "marveled at Dr. Brantly's courageous spirit as he has fought this horrible virus" and thanked staff at the hospital. On Friday, Brantly released a statement asking that people "continue to pray for and bring attention to those suffering in the ongoing Ebola crisis in West Africa." More than 1,300 people have died from the disease in the region, according to the World Health Organization, which has declared the Ebola epidemic a global health emergency. 
 
 Both Americans received experimental treatment before being flown to an isolation unit in Emory University Hospital in Atlanta in early August. Ribner says there is no way to tell if it helped. "They are the very first individuals to ever receive this agent ... and frankly, we do not no whether it helped them, whether it made no difference or whether it delayed their recovery," he said. 
 
 Ribner said doctors would follow up on both Writebol and Brantly to make sure they continue to recover, and to watch for any side-effects from the treatment. They will almost certainly be immune to this particular strain of Ebola but it's not clear what immunity they may have to other, related strains of the virus. 
 
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 In fact, both could return to Africa if their recovery continued. "We would anticipate immunity to this virus so that they would probably not be at risk of infection if they were caring for patients with Ebola virus disease during this outbreak," Ribner said. 
 
 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no concern for anyone with the release of the two patients. "They no longer have Ebola virus in their blood and therefore pose no risk to household contacts or the public. There are no restrictions to the patients' activities of daily living," CDC said in a statement. 
 
 Ribner said the hospital allowed Writebol to leave quietly and privately at her request. There was no need to tell the public because she poses no threat, he said. 
 
 "Nancy is free of the virus, but the lingering effects of the battle have left her in a significantly weakened condition," her husband David Writebol said in a statement. "Thus, we decided it would be best to leave the hospital privately to be able to give her the rest and recuperation she needs at this time." 
 
 F. Brinley Bruton and Lexi Rudolph contributed to this story ||||| By Nancy Gibbs 
 
 Not the glittering weapon fights the fight, says the proverb, but rather the hero’s heart. 
 
 Maybe this is true in any battle; it is surely true of a war that is waged with bleach and a prayer. 
 
 For decades, Ebola haunted rural African villages like some mythic monster that every few years rose to demand a human sacrifice and then returned to its cave. It reached the West only in nightmare form, a Hollywood horror that makes eyes bleed and organs dissolve and doctors despair because they have no cure. 
 
 But 2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty. This time it reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany and the U.S. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place. One August day in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one. 
 
 Which brings us to the hero’s heart. There was little to stop the disease from spreading further. Governments weren’t equipped to respond; the World Health Organization was in denial and snarled in red tape. First responders were accused of crying wolf, even as the danger grew. But the people in the field, the special forces of Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Christian medical-relief workers of Samaritan’s Purse and many others from all over the world fought side by side with local doctors and nurses, ambulance drivers and burial teams. 
 
 Ask what drove them and some talk about God; some about country; some about the instinct to run into the fire, not away. “If someone from America comes to help my people, and someone from Uganda,” says Iris Martor, a Liberian nurse, “then why can’t I?” Foday Gallah, an ambulance driver who survived infection, calls his immunity a holy gift. “I want to give my blood so a lot of people can be saved,” he says. “I am going to fight Ebola with all of my might.” 
 
 MSF nurse’s assistant Salome Karwah stayed at the bedsides of patients, bathing and feeding them, even after losing both her parents—who ran a medical clinic—in a single week and surviving Ebola herself. “It looked like God gave me a second chance to help others,” she says. Tiny children watched their families die, and no one could so much as hug them, because hugs could kill. “You see people facing death without their loved ones, only with people in space suits,” says MSF president Dr. Joanne Liu. “You should not die alone with space-suit men.” 
 
 Those who contracted the disease encountered pain like they had never known. “It hurts like they are busting your head with an ax,” Karwah says. One doctor overheard his funeral being planned. Asked if surviving Ebola changed him, Dr. Kent Brantly turns the question around. “I still have the same flaws that I did before,” he says. “But whenever we go through a devastating experience like what I’ve been through, it is an incredible opportunity for redemption of something. We can say, How can I be better now because of what I’ve been through? To not do that is kind of a shame.” 
 
 So that is the next challenge: What will we do with what we’ve learned? This was a test of the world’s ability to respond to potential pandemics, and it did not go well. It exposed corruption in African governments along with complacency in Western capitals and jealousy among competing bureaucrats. It triggered mistrust from Monrovia to Manhattan. Each week brought new puzzles. How do you secure a country, beyond taking passengers’ temperatures at the airport? Who has the power to order citizens to stay home, to post a guard outside their door? What will it take to develop treatments for diseases largely confined to poor nations, even as this Ebola outbreak had taken far more lives by mid-October than all the earlier ones combined? 
 
 The death in Dallas of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed on U.S. soil, and the infection of two nurses who treated him, shook our faith in the ability of U.S. hospitals to handle this kind of disease. From there the road to full freak-out was a short one. An Ohio middle school closed because an employee had flown on the same plane as one of Duncan’s nurses. Not the same flight, just the same plane. A Texas college rejected applicants from Nigeria, since that country had some “confirmed Ebola cases.” A Maine schoolteacher had to take a three-week leave because she went to a teachers’ conference in Dallas. Fear, too, was global. When a nurse in Spain contracted Ebola from a priest, Spanish authorities killed her dog as a precaution, while #VamosAMorirTodos (We’re all going to die) trended on Twitter. Guests at a hotel in Macedonia were trapped in their rooms for days after a British guest got sick and died. Turned out to have nothing to do with Ebola. 
 
 The problem with irrational responses is that they can cloud the need for rational ones. Just when the world needed more medical volunteers, the price of serving soared. When nurse Kaci Hickox, returning from a stint with MSF in Sierra Leone with no symptoms and a negative blood test, was quarantined in a tent in Newark, N.J., by a combustible governor, it forced a reckoning. “It is crazy we are spending so much time having this debate about how to safely monitor people coming back from Ebola-endemic countries,” says Hickox, “when the one thing we can do to protect the population is to stop the outbreak in West Africa.” 
 
 Ebola is a war, and a warning. The global health system is nowhere close to strong enough to keep us safe from infectious disease, and “us” means everyone, not just those in faraway places where this is one threat among many that claim lives every day. The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight. For tireless acts of courage and mercy, for buying the world time to boost its defenses, for risking, for persisting, for sacrificing and saving, the Ebola fighters are TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year. 
 
 Read more: 
 
 TIME’s 2014 Person of the Year: The Ebola Fighters 
 
 Runner-Up: Ferguson Protesters, The Activists 
 
 Runner-Up: Vladimir Putin, The Imperialist 
 
 Runner-Up: Massoud Barzani, The Opportunist 
 
 Runner-Up: Jack Ma, The Capitalist ||||| Atlanta (CNN) -- A medical plane whisked an American infected with Ebola from Liberia to Georgia on Saturday, the latest leg of a race to save the first known patient with the deadly virus to be treated on U.S. soil. 
 
 Shortly after the plane landed, an ambulance rushed Dr. Kent Brantly from Dobbins Air Reserve Base to Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. He's one of two Americans sickened by the deadly viral hemorrhagic fever last month while on the front lines of a major outbreak in West Africa. 
 
 Video from Emory showed someone in a white, full-body protective suit helping a similarly clad person emerge from the ambulance and walk into the hospital. 
 
 Hospital visitor: 'Oh, my God' 
 
 Emory has said it will treat Brantly, 33, and fellow missionary Nancy Writebol in an isolation unit. 
 
 The plane equipped with an isolation unit can only transport one patient at a time. It will now pick up Writebol in Liberia and bring her to Georgia early next week, said Todd Shearer, spokesman for Christian charity Samaritan's Purse, with which both Americans were affiliated. 
 
 Brantly's wife, parents and sister cried when they saw him on CNN walking from the ambulance into the hospital, another representative of Samaritan's Purse said on condition of anonymity. His wife, Amber, later said she was relieved that her husband was back in the United States. 
 
 "I spoke with him, and he is glad to be back in the U.S.," she said in statement. "I am thankful to God for his safe transport and for giving him the strength to walk into the hospital." 
 
 Brantly's wife visited with him from behind a glass wall for about 45 minutes, the Samaritan's Purse representative said. Kent Brantly was described as "in great spirits and so grateful." 
 
 Tennessee doctor who worked with Ebola patients quarantines self 
 
 Brantly, who has ties to Texas and Indiana, and Writebol, of North Carolina, became sick while caring for Ebola patients in Liberia, one of three West African nations hit by an outbreak. 
 
 Treatment in isolation 
 
 This will be the first human Ebola test for a U.S. medical facility. The patients will be treated at an isolated unit where precautions are in place to keep such deadly diseases from spreading, unit supervisor Dr. Bruce Ribner said. 
 
 Everything that comes in and out of the unit will be controlled, Ribner said, and it will have windows and an intercom for staff to interact with patients without being in the room. 
 
 Ebola is not airborne or waterborne, and spreads through contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and other secretions of infected people. 
 
 There is no FDA-approved treatment for Ebola, and Emory will use what Ribner calls "supportive care." That means carefully tracking a patient's symptoms, vital signs and organ function and taking measures, such as blood transfusions and dialysis, to keep patients stable. 
 
 Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Ebola will go global 
 
 "We just have to keep the patient alive long enough in order for the body to control this infection," Ribner said. 
 
 Writebol was given an experimental serum this week, Samaritan's Purse said, though its purpose and effects weren't immediately publicized. 
 
 The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding. 
 
 Early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function -- and sometimes internal and external bleeding. 
 
 Bruce Johnson, president of SIM USA, a Christian mission organization with which Writebol also is linked, said Saturday that both were seriously ill but stable. 
 
 "My last report (on Brantly) was yesterday. ... He was ambulatory, being able to talk, converse, and get up. So that was encouraging," Johnson said Saturday morning. 
 
 On Writebol, Johnson said: "She's responsive, and we're encouraged at how she's doing." 
 
 Emory's isolation unit was created with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based down the road. It aims to optimize care for those with highly infectious diseases and is one of four U.S. institutions capable of providing such treatment. 
 
 The World Health Organization reports that the outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is believed to have infected 1,323 people and killed more than 729 this year, as of July 27. 
 
 Fear, conspiracy theories 
 
 As officials worked to bring the two Americans home, the idea of intentionally bringing Ebola into the United States has rattled many nerves. 
 
 "The road to hell was paved with good intentions," wrote one person, using the hashtag #EbolaOutbreak. "What do we say to our kids When they get sick& die?" 
 
 On the website of conspiracy talker Alex Jones, who has long purported the CDC could unleash a pandemic and the government would react by instituting authoritarian rule, the news was a feast of fodder. 
 
 "Feds would exercise draconian emergency powers if Ebola hits U.S.," a headline read on infowars.com. 
 
 Ribner repeatedly downplayed the risk for anyone who will be in contact with Brantly or Writebol. 
 
 "We have two individuals who are critically ill, and we feel that we owe them the right to receive the best medical care," Ribner said. 
 
 The fight against Ebola 
 
 All concerns about the United States pale in comparison to the harsh reality in the hardest-hit areas. 
 
 Even in the best-case scenario, it could take three to six months to stem the epidemic in West Africa, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC. 
 
 There's no vaccine, though one is in the works. 
 
 There's no standardized treatment for the disease, either; the most common approach is to support organ functions and keep up bodily fluids such as blood and water long enough for the body to fight off the infection. 
 
 The National Institutes of Health plans to begin testing an experimental Ebola vaccine in people as early as September. Tests on primates have been successful. 
 
 So far, the outbreak is confined to West Africa. Although infections are dropping in Guinea, they are on the rise in Liberia and Sierra Leone. 
 
 In the 1990s, an Ebola strain tied to monkeys -- Ebola-Reston -- was found in the United States, but no humans got sick from it, according to the CDC. 
 
 Experts: U.S. health care system well-prepared for Ebola 
 
 CNN's Chelsea J. Carter, Greg Botelho, Deanna Hackney, John Branch, Danielle Dellorto, Barbara Starr, MaryLynn Ryan and Ben Brumfield contributed to this report. ||||| Head of Médecins sans Frontières says the world is 'losing the battle' as cases and deaths continue to surge 
 
 Military teams should be sent to west Africa immediately if there is to be any hope of controlling the Ebola epidemic, doctors on the frontline told the United Nations on Tuesday, painting a stark picture of health workers dying, patients left without care and infectious bodies lying in the streets. 
 
 The international president of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), Dr Joanne Liu, told member states that although alarm bells had been ringing for six months, the response had been too little, too late and no amount of vaccinations and new drugs would be able to prevent the escalating disaster. 
 
 "Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it," Liu said. 
 
 "In west Africa, cases and deaths continue to surge," she said. "Riots are breaking out. Isolation centres are overwhelmed. Health workers on the frontline are becoming infected and are dying in shocking numbers. 
 
 "Others have fled in fear, leaving people without care for even the most common illnesses. Entire health systems have crumbled." 
 
 She said Ebola treatment centres had been reduced to places where people went to die alone. 
 
 "It is impossible to keep up with the sheer number of infected people pouring into facilities. In Sierra Leone, infectious bodies are rotting in the streets," she said. "Rather than building new Ebola care centres in Liberia, we are forced to build crematoria." 
 
 The World Health Organisation estimated last week that 20,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone could be infected even if the outbreak is brought under control within three months. Médecins sans Frontières has doubled its staff of volunteer doctors in the region but is unable to cope. 
 
 The epidemic can be stopped, said Liu, but only if governments send in biohazard teams and equipment. 
 
 "Many of the member states represented here today have invested heavily in biological threat response," she said at the UN. "You have a political and humanitarian responsibility to immediately utilise these capabilities in Ebola-affected countries. 
 
 "To curb the epidemic, it is imperative that states immediately deploy civilian and military assets with expertise in biohazard containment. I call upon you to dispatch your disaster response teams, backed by the full weight of your logistical capabilities. This should be done in close collaboration with the affected countries. Without this deployment, we will never get the epidemic under control." 
 
 Money is no longer the main issue, according to MSF, and voluntary help is not enough. Skilled and well equipped teams are needed on the ground. 
 
 Governments should send in military and civilian experts who can increase the number of isolation centres and deploy mobile laboratories that can be used to diagnose more cases. 
 
 Military-style operations are required to establish dedicated air bridges to move personnel and equipment around west Africa and a regional network of field hospitals must be built to treat medical staff who are infected or suspected of being infected. About a tenth of the deaths have been among health workers. 
 
 "We must also address the collapse of state infrastructure," Liu said. "The health system in Liberia has collapsed. Pregnant women experiencing complications have nowhere to turn. 
 
 "Malaria and diarrhoea, easily preventable and treatable diseases, are killing people. Hospitals need to be reopened and newly created." 
 
 Lastly, she said, there must be a change of approach by affected countries. "Coercive measures, such as laws criminalising the failure to report suspected cases, and forced quarantines, are driving people underground. 
 
 "This is leading to the concealment of cases, and is pushing the sick away from health systems. These measures have only served to breed fear and unrest, rather than contain the virus." 
 
 Liu was speaking as nurses in Liberia went on strike for better pay and equipment to protect themselves from Ebola. 
 
 John Tugbeh, spokesman for the strikers at John F Kennedy hospital in Monrovia, said the nurses would not return to work until they are supplied with "personal protective equipment (PPEs)", the clothing that guards against infectious diseases. 
 
 "From the beginning of the Ebola outbreak we have not had any protective equipment to work with. As a result, so many doctors got infected by the virus. We have to stay home until we get the PPEs," he said. 
 
 The surgical section at John F Kennedy hospital is the only trauma referral centre in Liberia. The hospital closed temporarily in July owing to the infections and deaths of an unspecified number of health workers who had been treating Ebola patients. 
 
 "We need proper equipment to work with [and] we need better pay because we are going to risk our lives," Tugbeh said. 
 
 The UN has also warned of serious food shortages as a result of restrictions on movement in the Ebola-hit countries. "Access to food has become a pressing concern for many people in the three affected countries and their neighbours," said Bukar Tijani, the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation regional representative for Africa. 
 
 "With the main harvest now at risk and trade and movements of goods severely restricted, food insecurity is poised to intensify in the weeks and months to come." 
 
 A UK Government spokesman said: "Britain is working with agencies like the World Health Organisation and Médecins Sans Frontières to prevent the spread of this deadly disease. A wide range of further options are under discussion to contain this outbreak." 
 
 Dr Paul Cosford, director of health protection at Public Health England, said: "We will continue to offer every support to the international efforts to contain and manage the Ebola outbreak led by the World Health Organisation, working closely with government colleagues, and partners including MSF and Unicef." 
 
 • This article was amended on 3 September 2014. An earlier version said the World Health Organisation estimated last week that 20,000 people could have been infected with Ebola over three months. In fact it said 20,000 people could be infected even if the outbreak is brought under control within three months.
– Hand-wringing isn't going to help stop the world's Ebola outbreak, but money might. The New York Times offers a list of groups trying to keep the disease in check in West Africa and elsewhere, along with links for those interested in donating: Doctors Without Borders: Ways to help here. International Medical Corps: Go here. UNICEF: Go here. Save the Children: Go here. International Red Cross: Go here. World Food Program: Go here. Samaritan's Purse: Go here. Partners in Health: Go here. Americares: Go here. An NBC cameraman is the latest American to contract the disease.