A top us health official yesterday urged swift action to prevent the deadly Ebola virus from becoming the next AIDS epidemic, as the health of an infected Spanish nurse deteriorated. 

The United Nations chief meanwhile called for a 20-fold increase in the world's response to the spread of Ebola, which has killed nearly 3,900 people in West Africa since the beginning of the year. Ebola's spillover into the United States and Europe has raised fears of a wider outbreak, and led the United States and Canada to start tougher airport screening of passengers arriving from West Africa. 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has predicted the number of cases could mount to 1.4 million by January unless strong measures are taken to contain the disease, which is spread though close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. 

"We have to work now so that it is not the world's nextAIDS," CDCdirector Tom Frieden told the heads of the United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund gathered in Washington."