Fears that the west African Ebola outbreak could spread to other continents grew on Wednesday with European and Asian countries on alert and a leading medical charity warning the epidemic was out of control.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said the crisis gripping Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone would only get worse and warned there was no overarching strategy to handle the world's worst outbreak of the disease.
The US Peace Corps announced it was pulling hundreds of volunteers from the three countries.
And another US group, Christian charity Samaritan's Purse, was also temporarily withdrawing its non-essential staff from Liberia, citing regional "instability and ongoing security issues".
Hong Kong announced quarantine measures for suspected cases, although one woman arriving from Africa with possible symptoms tested negative, while the EU said it was ready to deal with the threat.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has held talks with global health officials on potential measures to halt the spread of the disease.
In Britain, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond chaired the government's COBRA crisis management committee to assess the situation. One person has tested negative for the disease.
"The prime minister does regard it as a very serious threat," Hammond said. "We are very much focused on it as a new and emerging threat which we need to deal with."
He said the emergency meeting had decided that the best approach was to provide "additional resources to deal with the disease at source" in west Africa.
Ebola can kill victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in some cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.
Since March, there have been 1,201 cases of Ebola and 672 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The US Peace Corps announced Wednesday it was pulling hundreds of volunteers from the three countries.
In Hong Kong, a densely populated city previously scarred by disease outbreaks such as the 2003 SARS epidemic, health officials confirmed they would quarantine as a precautionary measure any visitors from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia who showed fever symptoms.
One woman arriving in the southern Chinese city from Africa, who showed symptoms including fever and vomiting, has tested negative for Ebola.
Bart Janssens, MSF's director of operations, warned that governments and global bodies had no "overarching view" vision of how to tackle the outbreak.
"This epidemic is unprecedented, absolutely out of control and the situation can only get worse, because it is still spreading, above all in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in some very important hotspots," he said.
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