The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an Ebola test for use on patients with signs and symptoms of the virus infection.

Manufactured by the Swiss drugmaker Roche Holdings, the LightMix test generates results in just over three hours.

There are still no vaccines or drugs approved by the FDA to innoculate or treat the virus, although experimental vaccines and treatments are under development.

Ebola is the cause of a viral hemorrhagic fever disease. Symptoms include fever, headache, joint and muscle aches, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain, lack of appetite, and abnormal bleeding. Symptoms of the virus can appear anywhere from two to 21 days after exposure, but is most commonly seen between days eight to 10.

About 3,400 people have died from Ebola in Liberia over the past year, with nearly 8,000 cases total, though health officials say the situation has improved, especially in the capital city of Monrovia.

The World Health Organization said last Wednesday Sierra Leone is now the leading country with the most Ebola cases at 9,400.

Liberia has reported an increase in the number of cases in border towns shared with Sierra Leone.  About 3,400 people have died from Ebola in Liberia, with nearly 8,000 cases.

Overall, more than 20,000 Ebola illnesses and nearly 8,000 deaths have been reported this year in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Meanwhile, a healthcare worker just returned from Sierra Leone is being treated for Ebola and hospitalized in an isolation unit in Glasgow, Scotland.

It is the first known case in the United Kingdom.

The woman arrived from Sierra Leone on Sunday night before developing symptoms on Monday and was submitted to a hospital. Her flight from Sierra Leone was via Casablanca and London Heathrow. All possible contacts with the woman are being investigated, including flights to Scotland from Heathrow.

The healthcare worker worked through the charity Save the Children at the Ebola Treatment Centre in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone. She will be flown from Glasgow to the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

"We are also reviewing our procedures and protocols for all the other NHS workers who are working at the moment in Sierra Leone," U.K. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the BBC

Experts stress the risk to the general public was very low, as the disease is transmitted by direct contact with bodily fluids such as blood, vomit or feces of an infected person.