A Chinese drugmaker with close military ties is seeking fast-track approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola, as China joins the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of a disease that has spread from Africa to the United States and Europe.

Japan would donate emergency vehicles and medical equipment worth $400,159.00 for Liberia and $397,749.00 for Sierra Leone to help combat the Ebola viral disease.

“Two different flights of MV-22 Osprey and KC-130 aircraft, along with U.S. Marines, will arrive to support the whole-of-government effort to contain Ebola,” U.S. Army Capt. R. Carter Langston told The Associated Press in an email. They were to land later Thursday at Roberts Airfield outside the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

Kaiser Permanente has donated $1 million to two international aid groups to support "direct medical care and safe clinical treatment practices" in West Africa, its first major donation to help halt the spread of the virus.

Israel, whose researchers are doing pathfinding work in the fight against Ebola fever that is spreading in Western Africa and beyond, will send three mobile emergency clinics to the region.

The UN has launched a mission to prevent the global spread of Ebola, describing the epidemic as the world's 'highest priority' as the United States scrambled to limit its own outbreak. Anthony Banbury, head of the UN Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), began a tour of the three hardest-hit nations in the Liberian capital Monrovia setting out an ambitious goal to eradicate the deadly virus.

Britain made a plea for international help to deal with the world's worst Ebola outbreak at the start of a conference in London on Thursday, with one charity warning that five people are being infected with the virus every hour in Sierra Leone.