With three cases of Ebola diagnosed in the United States but dozens of people being monitored in case they contract the illness, President Barack Obama urged Americans on Saturday not to give in to "hysteria" about the spread of the virus.
Obama also made plain he is not currently planning to give in to demands from some lawmakers for a ban on travelers from the worst-hit countries.
"We can't just cut ourselves off from West Africa," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "Trying to seal off an entire region of the world - if that were even possible - could actually make the situation worse," he said.
The worst Ebola outbreak on record has killed more than 4,500 people, most of them in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Obama, whose approval rating is already low, has been criticized over his administration's handling of Ebola. He held a flurry of meetings on the issue in recent days and on Friday appointed Ron Klain, a lawyer with long Washington experience, to oversee the effort to contain the disease.
Republicans questioned why he did not pick a medical expert.
"I hope he (Klain) is successful in this. I think it's a step in the right direction, but I just question picking someone without any background in public health," Republican Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN on Saturday.
Royce also disputed Obama's stance that isolating affected West African countries is not a solution, saying a temporary hold on issuing visas would not be "as crippling an impact as would be allowing this to continue and to have the spread of Ebola."
The Obama administration is not alone in facing criticism. The World Health Organization has been faulted for failing to do enough to halt the spread of Ebola since the outbreak was first detected in March.
On Saturday, the agency promised it would publish a full review of its handling of the crisis once the outbreak was under control, in response to a leaked document that appeared to acknowledge that it had failed to do enough.
Canada said on Saturday it would ship 800 vials of its experimental Ebola vaccine to the WHO in Geneva beginning on Monday.
The WHO, in consultation with health authorities in the countries most affected by Ebola, would decide on how the vaccine will be distributed and used, the Public Health Agency of Canada said in a statement.
The vaccine was undergoing clinical trials at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the United States, it said.
REUTERS