The World Health Organization has withdrawn staff from a laboratory testing for Ebola at Kailahun in eastern Sierra Leone after one of its medical workers there was infected during the worst ever outbreak of the disease, a WHO spokesperson said.

"It's a temporary measure to take care of the welfare of our remaining workers," WHO spokesperson Christy Feig told Reuters. "After our assessment, they will return."

The WHO has sent nearly 400 people from its own staff and partner organisations to fight the outbreak in West Africa. It said on Sunday that a foreign health worker it had deployed in Sierra Leone had been infected.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.