What You Need to Know About the Ebola Outbreak Questions and answers on the scale of the outbreak and the science of the Ebola virus.
ABUJA, Nigeria — The leaders of West African nations ravaged by the worst known outbreak of the Ebola virus were set to meet on Friday with the head of the World Health Organization to introduce a $100 million plan to deploy hundreds more medical professionals in support of overstretched regional and international health workers.
The gathering will come a day after West African leaders seemed to quicken the pace of efforts to combat the disease, in what some analysts depicted as a belated acknowledgment that the response so far had been inadequate.
The outbreak, identified in March, has claimed 729 lives, according to the W.H.O., and shows no sign of abating. This has prompted prompting two of the three most affected countries — Sierra Leone and Liberia — to announce emergency measures including the closure of schools, house-to-house searches for infected people and the deployment of the army and the police.
The meeting on Friday will be held in Conakry, the capital of Guinea — the third of the most affected countries.
The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said on Thursday that the United States was considering a medical evacuation to bring home American aid workers diagnosed with Ebola. Two health workers who were infected in Liberia were in grave condition, according to a statement on the website of the organization Samaritan’s Purse.
