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New Ebola cases may rise to 10,000 a week soon
Oct 15, 201401:45 PM
The Ebola virus is killing 70% of the people who contract the disease, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, and as many as 10,000 new cases a week could be reported by early December.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Bruce Aylward, the WHO assistant director-general in charge of the organization’s response to the epidemic, said the Ebola virus is “still moving geographically, still escalating” in some bigger cities.
He expressed concern the disease could spread to West African countries that share borders with Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the epicenters of the current outbreak, singling out Ivory Coast as particularly
Dr. Aylward pushed for adoption of a plan the WHO has dubbed “70-70-60” that includes the goal to safely bury 70% of the people killed by Ebola and treat 70% of those with the disease within 60 days to help prevent the spread of the disease.
“Every time you isolate another patient, every time you have a safe burial, you’re taking some of the heat out of this outbreak,” Dr. Aylward said.
The WHO’s latest numbers indicated 8,914 suspected or confirmed Ebola cases and 4,447 deaths from the disease. Based on those numbers, the mortality rate is under 50%.
But Dr. Aylward said that when patients can be monitored throughout the course of their disease, the mortality rate is actually 70% in the affected countries.
“This is again a high-mortality disease in any circumstance but especially these places where it’s happening,” Dr. Aylward said.
Dr. Aylward said the number of reported cases has been running at 1,000 a week over the past three to four weeks, with the total number of reported cases expected to top 9,000 this week.
