The US has praised Ebola-hit West African nations and foreign donors for their efforts in tackling the outbreak.

America’s UN envoy Samantha Power, on a visit to the region, said Liberia and Sierra Leone had hugely increased the number of safe burials – one of the main ways the virus is transmitted.

Ms Power said international aid was helping to combat the disease, and urged donors to continue to help.

The US government has continued to stress that the best way to stop the virus from spreading is to tackle it at source, and has rejected calls for restrictions on travel from the region.

At a joint news conference in Monrovia with Ms Power, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said “restriction is not the appropriate response” to a “global crisis”. She warned against stigmatising those suffering from Ebola. Ms Power said the American government’s message to Liberians was that the virus would be beaten.

As well as the rise in safe burials, she said mobile laboratories had helped to massively cut the time taken to test samples, enabling more beds to be freed up.