Nearly 7,000 people have now died from Ebola in west Africa, with the latest report from the World Health Organization counting over 1,200 more deaths than in a toll given on Wednesday.

Data published by the U.N.'s health body late Friday showed that 16,169 people had been infected with Ebola and that 6,928 of them had died in the three countries at the center of the outbreak -- Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

The last region of Sierra Leone to be affected by Ebola, Koinadugu, in the north-east of the country, has seen 50 people die from the virus in recent weeks, according to the Red Cross.

"Fifty people have died since mid-October," the head of the Red Cross in Sierra Leone, John Marah, told Agence France Presse.

Citizens of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will need a visa to enter Singapore as part of measures against the spread of Ebola, the city-state's health ministry said Monday.

The three West African countries are the worst-hit by the Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 4,900 people.

Health Minister Wael Abou Faour said Wednesday that flights arriving from countries where there is an Ebola outbreak would land in one terminal as he announced further measures to stop the virus from reaching Lebanon.

Following talks with the management of Rafik Hariri International Airport along with Public Works and Transport Minister Ghazi Zoaiter, Abou Faour said a specialized room has been established at the airport apron to isolate any suspected case.

Health Minister Wael Abou Faour warned on Monday that Lebanon could be exposed to Ebola because Lebanese expatriates are present in countries where the virus is spread but promised measures to prevent infection cases in the country.

Abou Faour denied that the virus was present in Lebanon and said his ministry was cooperating with the foreign ministry to take extraordinary measures at Lebanese embassies in the African states where the virus is spread.

At least nine people died and dozens more were missing Friday after an overcrowded wooden boat went down off the south coast of Guinea, officials said.

The long thin pirogue boat had 69 passengers aboard when it left the port of Farmoriah for a weekly market further along the coast of the west African country, the national navigation agency said. 

Millions of Sierra Leoneans were set to emerge from their homes on Monday after a three-day nationwide lockdown during which scores of dead bodies and new cases of Ebola infections were uncovered.

The west African country had imposed the extreme measure confining its six million people to their homes for 72 hours in a bid to stem a deadly Ebola outbreak which has claimed more than 2,600 lives there and in neighboring Liberia and Guinea this year.

The Obama administration is ramping up its response to West Africa's Ebola crisis, preparing to assign 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the afflicted region to supply medical and logistical support to overwhelmed local health care systems and to boost the number of beds needed to isolate and treat victims of the epidemic.

President Barack Obama planned to announce the stepped up effort Tuesday during a visit to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta amid alarm that the outbreak could spread and that the deadly virus could mutate into a more easily transmitted disease.

International medical agency Medecins Sans Frontieres said Tuesday the world was "losing the battle" to contain Ebola and called for a global biological disaster response to get aid and personnel to west Africa.

"Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it. Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat," MSF international president Joanne Liu told a U.N. briefing in New York. 

Ebola-hit nations met for crisis talks on Thursday as the death toll topped 1,500 and the World Health Organization warned that the number of cases could exceed 20,000 before the outbreak is stemmed.

Nigeria announced that the virus had reached its oil-producing hub, dashing hopes that the country had successfully contained it to its biggest city, Lagos.