Nigeria reports new Ebola case

The number of new cases of Ebola in Nigeria had risen by one to a total of 11, Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said on Thursday, representing an apparent slowing of transmission.

The figure includes three deaths, with the eight surviving patients being treated at a specialist isolation hospital in Lagos.

"Eight are still alive, more than half of them are doing very well and actually showing signs of recovery... under treatment," Chukwu said.

Within the megacity of more than 20 million people, 169 people remain under observation for possible infection - down from 177. The several cases reported in Nigeria were associated with an infected traveler - who later died - arriving there from Liberia.

Concerns that a nurse might have transmitted the disease from Lagos to the eastern city of Enugu were eased somewhat. Six people remain under screening for the disease, but so far none has proved positive.

The World Health Organization has called the current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, which has killed more than 1,000 people, an international emergency.

Airline stops Africa-bound flights

South Korean national carrier Korean Air said it would halt flights to the Kenyan city of Nairobi, in what it said was a precautionary measure to prevent Ebola's spread. Although there have been no cases of Ebola so far in Kenya, the city is Korean Air's only destination in Africa.

The airline has a record of taking precautionary measures ahead of other carriers.

In Singapore, the Straits Times reported that a woman from Nigeria had been taken into isolation after flying to the country and reporting to a local hospital suffered from a fever. The woman, in her fifties, was discharged after investigations showed she did not have the disease.

The disease has so far been reported on a significant scale in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with Germany having urged its citizens not to travel to any of the three countries.

rc/kms (AFP, AP, Reuters)