New estimates from the WHO warn the number of Ebola cases could hit 21,000 in six weeks unless efforts to curb the outbreak are ramped up.
Since the first cases were reported six months ago, the tally of cases in West Africa has reached an estimated 5,800 illnesses.
WHO officials say cases are continuing to increase exponentially and Ebola could sicken people for years to come without better control measures.
Photo: AFP
In recent weeks, health officials worldwide have stepped up efforts to provide aid, but the virus is still spreading. There are not enough hospital beds, health workers or even soap and water in the hardest-hit West African countries: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Last week, the US announced it would build more than a dozen medical centers in Liberia and send 3,000 troops to help. Britain and France have also pledged to build treatment centers in Sierra Leone and Guinea and the World Bank and UNICEF have sent more than US$1 million worth of supplies to the region.
“We’re beginning to see some signs in the response that gives us hope this increase in cases won’t happen,” said Christopher Dye, the WHO’s director of strategy and a study co-author, who acknowledged the predictions come with a lot of uncertainties. “This is a bit like weather forecasting. We can do it a few days in advance, but looking a few weeks or months ahead is very difficult.”
They also calculated the death rate to be about 70 percent among hospitalized patients, but said many Ebola cases were only identified after they died.
So far, about 2,800 deaths have been attributed to Ebola.
Dye said there was no proof Ebola was more infectious or deadly than in previous outbreaks.
The new analysis was published online yesterday by the New England Journal of Medicine — six months after the first infections were reported on March 23.
The WHO is just one of the groups that have attempted to calculate the epidemic’s future toll.
Yesterday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was expected to release its own predictions for only Liberia and Sierra Leone — the two West African countries that recently have shown the steadiest and most alarming spread of cases.
The CDC calculations are based, in part, on assumptions that cases have been dramatically under-reported. Other projections have not made the same kind of attempt to quantify illnesses that may have been missed in official counts.
CDC scientists conclude there may be as many as 21,000 reported and unreported cases in just those two countries as soon as the end of this month, according to a draft version of the report. They also predict that the two countries could have a staggering 550,000 to 1.4 million cases by late January.
The agency’s numbers seem “somewhat pessimistic” and do not account for infection control efforts already underway, said Richard Wenzel, a Virginia Commonwealth University scientist who formerly led the International Society for Infectious Diseases.
Other outside experts questioned the WHO’s projections and said Ebola’s spread would ultimately be slowed not only by containment measures, but by changes in people’s behavior.
“It’s a big assumption that nothing will change in the current outbreak response,” Doctors Without Borders infectious diseases specialist Armand Sprecher said.
“Ebola outbreaks usually end when people stop touching the sick,” he said. “The outbreak is not going to end tomorrow, but there are things we can do to reduce the case count.”
Local health officials have launched campaigns to educate people about the symptoms of Ebola and not to touch the sick or the dead.
Previous Ebola outbreaks have been in other areas of Africa; this is the first to hit West Africa.
Sprecher was also unconvinced Ebola could continue causing cases for years and said diseases that persist in the environment usually undergo significant changes to become less deadly or transmissible.
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