The deadly Ebola outbreak on Wednesday showed new signs of spreading, as Nigeria confirmed a second death plus five new cases.
The new cases in Nigeria raise concerns that the virus will spread further in Africa's most populous nation, with its 174 million residents.
Meanwhile, Liberia has declared a state of emergency over the outbreak with its president saying the scale of the epidemic represented a threat to state security.
So far, the smaller and less populous countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea have been the epicenters of the outbreak, which has claimed 932 deaths among more than 1,700 cases, the reported Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia reported it was investigating the suspicious death of a man who traveled through West Africa.
The World Health Organization will convene an ethics panel next week to discuss whether the experimental drug ZMapp should be given to some Ebola patients across West Africa.
Two American medical missionaries who contracted the Ebola virus in Liberia appear to be showing signs of improvement after doses of the experimental serum in recent days.
The drug has not been approved for, or tested on humans, and according to its manufacturer, there is only a very limited supply of the experimental drug.
If its use is recommended, the panel then will consider who should get the drug.
President Barack Obama said late Wednesday it was too early at this point to consider sending the drug to West Africa.
Nigerian officials said a nurse who treated the country's first Ebola patient two weeks ago died Tuesday of the disease. She was the first known Nigerian to have died from Ebola. The other victim was Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American who flew into Nigeria from Liberia with the disease. He was hospitalized in Lagos and died July 25.
The five other Nigerian patients are now in isolation at a Lagos hospital. All are health workers who treated Sawyer.
Nigeria is bracing for the possibility of more infections. Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said the government is establishing a 24-hour-a-day Ebola command center and is trying to prepare hospitals around the country in case the disease spreads further.
“We need to work with each state government to establish isolation wards in readiness for any eventuality,” Chukwu said, noting the one in Lagos State would be strengthened and expanded.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's official news agency reported that a suspected Ebola patient died in Jeddah on Wednesday despite two days of intensive hospital treatment. The man came down with symptoms of Ebola after a business trip to Sierra Leone.
Saudi health officials have sent tissue samples to laboratories abroad to confirm whether the deceased patient had been infected by Ebola.
In Liberia, where WHO has reported at least 282 deaths from the virus, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s message to the nation Tuesday night boiled down to this: God help us.
“Relying on his divine guidance for our survival as a nation,” she said, “I call on all Liberians to observe three days of national fast and prayer to see God’s face, to have mercy on us and forgive our sins and heal our land.”
Beginning Wednesday, Liberians are to fast and pray from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sirleaf’s pronouncement has gotten mixed reactions in the capital, Monrovia. Some say it shows just how desperate the situation has become while others tell VOA it is an important step to keep people calm and unified.
Some had already heeded the president's call as of daylight Wednesday.
About 700 people, some dressed in white, gathered here at the Abundant Life Church Church on the outskirts of Monrovia.
“…The nation will survive. Hallelujah. Our country will emerge victorious over this incurable disease,” Pastor Varney Yarwo preached from the pulpit.
The Liberian health ministry said 94 people died of Ebola over seven days beginning July 27, in what its latest report calls "The Dark Week."
Daily life has ground to halt in much of Liberia. Police are protecting health workers and facilities as fear and frustration continue to breed hostility. The president has put nonessential government workers on mandatory leave, closed schools and told citizens to avoid large public gatherings.
That's all in the hope of reducing transmission of the disease, spread through bodily fluids, while health workers scramble to contain existing cases.
In neighboring Sierra Leone, considered the most dangerous zone of this regional outbreak, soldiers have deployed to the east to quarantine the most affected areas.