Health Minister Wael Abu Faour stressed on Monday that there are no fatal Ebola cases recorded in Lebanon, and that the person brought in from the Democratic Republic of Congo has died of asthma, media reports said.

“There are no fatal cases of the Ebola virus in Lebanon. The person that was brought to Lebanon from Congo has died of asthma,” clarified Abu Faour.

The worst-ever Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,400 people, the U.N. said Friday, as Cuba pledged the largest foreign medical team deployed so far in the west African health crisis.

World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan warned the spiraling epidemic of the murderous tropical virus demanded a stronger, faster response from the international community.

Officials at the Nebraska Medical Center where an American aid worker infected with Ebola is being treated say the patient is getting his appetite back.

Dr. Rick Sacra was flown to the Omaha, Nebraska, hospital on Sept. 5 for treatment in the hospital's specialized 10-bed isolation unit.

For nearly four decades, mention of the Ebola virus has evoked death and terror, yet a simple factor -- money -- has stood in the way of erasing the curse, experts say.

Despite its evil reputation, Ebola breaks out only rarely in brief if murderous spurts in impoverished African countries.

The head of a Taiwanese company at the centre of a widening food safety scandal has been detained for selling hundreds of tonnes of "gutter oil" that caused mass product recalls, authorities said Saturday.

Yeh Wen-hsiang, chairman of Chang Guann Co, was taken into custody early Saturday on suspicion of fraud, officials said, deeming him a flight risk and fearing he could collude with other suspects or destroy evidence.

U.S. regulators have greenlighted a new weight-loss drug called Contrave, the third in a string of approvals for prescription medications aimed at the nation's 78 million obese adults.

The pill, Contrave, is a combination of two drugs that are already approved, naltrexone and bupropion. Naltrexone is used to treat alcohol and narcotic dependence. Bupropion is an antidepressant also used to help people quit smoking.

Investigators say they don't expect to find the specific sources of fatal strains of E. coli that killed two children in the Pacific Northwest and left a Washington boy fighting for his life.

Dr. Paul Cieslak, medical director of the communicable disease section of the Oregon Health Authority, said Thursday they need at least twice as many cases to pin down a source, which might be tainted food, lake water, or contact with livestock.

Cuba will send 165 doctors and nurses to Sierra Leone to help fight the Ebola outbreak, Cuba's health minister and the World Health Organization announced Friday.

"We will contribute with a brigade of 165 collaborators, consisting of 62 doctors and 103 nurses," Cuban Health Minister Roberto Morales Ojeda told reporters in Geneva.

The number of people aged 100 or older in rapidly greying Japan has hit a record high for the 44th straight year, the government said Friday.

The country's centenarian population jumped by 4,423 from a year earlier to a record 58,820 as of September 1, the health ministry said, adding that 87.1 percent of them were women.

Health Minister Wael Abu Faour issued an order on Thursday closing al-Sanawbra charity infirmary in Baabda and calling off its license after pharmacy inspections found expired medical products.

Furthermore, the inspectors found medical products for chronic diseases stamped with names of patients. The products which are usually given to patients for free are being traded commercially at the said clinic.