With some 76,000 Nigerian Muslims expected this year at the hajj in Saudi Arabia, organisation was always going to be a major logistical undertaking.

But after more than 2,600 deaths from Ebola in West Africa this year, including eight in Nigeria, the authorities have had to put in extra security measures to allay fears about its possible spread outside the region.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday issued an executive order to ramp up the national response to the problem of antibiotic resistance and infections that cannot be treated.

The White House called for a task force that combines the government's health, defense and agriculture departments to deliver a five-year plan to the president by February 2015.

Clinical trials of two experimental vaccines against the deadly Ebola virus are due to begin soon in Switzerland, the country's Tropical and Public Health Institute said on Thursday.

"Switzerland is playing a central role in the clinical trials of two vaccines against Ebola," Marcel Tanner, who heads the Basel-based institute, told Swiss public radio SRF.

Syria's opposition said Thursday that 16 children who died during a measles vaccination campaign in the mostly rebel-held province of Idlib had been given an anaesthesia additive by mistake.

"Reports point to the possibility of human error which led to atracurium being used in place of the solvent which should have been used with the vaccine," said opposition government chief Ahmad Tohme.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday declared the Ebola outbreak a threat to world peace and called on countries to provide urgent aid to West Africa, the epicenter of the growing crisis.

The 15-member council unanimously adopted a resolution after U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that the number of Ebola infections -- already more than 5,000 -- was doubling every three weeks, notably in Liberia.

The first French person to have been infected by the deadly Ebola virus was still in Liberia Thursday and was waiting to be airlifted home, according to the humanitarian group she works for.

The patient -- a female volunteer for Doctors Without Borders (MSF in French), which has been hugely active in the fight against the killer virus that is ravaging west Africa -- was placed in isolation on Tuesday after showing symptoms of the disease.

Promoted as an aid to good health, artificial sweeteners may in fact be boosting diabetes risk, said a study Wednesday that urged a rethink of their widespread use and endorsement.

Also called non-calorific artificial sweeteners, or NAS, the additives are found in diet sodas, cereals and desserts -- a huge market for people worried about weight gain and sugar intake.

Ultrasounds are just as effective as CT scans at finding kidney stones and should be used as a first step to avoid unnecessary radiation exposure, U.S. researchers said Wednesday.

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine randomized nearly 3,000 people who went to emergency rooms for suspected kidney stones.

Smoke-filled bars and packed cancer wards reflect decades of neglect of no-smoking policies in Asia, where both high- and low-income countries are belatedly waking up to a growing tobacco-related health epidemic.

Researchers say inadequate public awareness of smoking risks, coupled with aggressive tobacco marketing, has left Asian nations with some of the highest smoking rates in the world at a time when sustained anti-smoking campaigns have lowered rates in the U.S. and parts of Europe.

Bringing a soapy twist to the "Ice Bucket Challenge" that has swept the world in recent weeks, Ivorians are raising awareness about the deadly disease outbreak in west Africa with a new "Lather Against Ebola" campaign.

People in Ivory Coast do use ice in their variation, but have added a good head of lather to alert others to the need for hygiene to ward off the Ebola epidemic raging in neighbouring countries.