Death rate from Ebola rises to 70%
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E-mail Agencies via Shanghai Daily, October 15, 2014
West Africa could see up to 10,000 new Ebola cases a week within two months, the World Health Organization said yesterday, while confirming that the death rate in the current outbreak has risen to 70 percent.
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Members of a Liberian Red Cross unit wear protective gear as they prepare to go into a house where an Ebola patient died in Monrovia, capital of Liberia on Oct. 14, 2014. [Photo/Xinhua] |
WHO Assistant Director-General Dr Bruce Aylward gave the figures during a news conference in Geneva. Previously, the WHO had estimated the Ebola mortality rate was about 50 percent.
Aylward said the new rate confirmed it was "a high mortality disease" and that the United Nations health agency was focused on trying to get sick people isolated and provide treatment as early as possible.
If the world's response to the crisis isn't stepped up within 60 days, "a lot more people will die," he said, adding that health workers will be stretched even further dealing with the spiraling numbers of cases.
Health care workers have also been hit hard by the virus. International aid organization Doctors Without Borders said that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and nine of them have died.
Speaking at a news conference in Johannesburg yesterday, the head of Doctors Without Borders in South Africa, Sharon Ekambaram, said medical workers have received inadequate assistance from the international community.
"Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?" said Ekambaram, who worked in Sierra Leone from August to September. "We've all heard their promises in the media, but have seen very little on the ground."
For the past month, there's been about 1,000 new Ebola cases per week -- including suspected, confirmed and probable cases, he said, adding that the WHO is aiming to get 70 percent of cases isolated by December to reverse the outbreak.
The WHO yesterday increased its Ebola death toll tally to 4,447 people, nearly all of them in West Africa, from 8,914 cases.
Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have been the hardest hit by the epidemic.
Aylward said the WHO is very concerned about the continued spread of Ebola in the three countries' capital cities -- Freetown, Conakry and Monrovia -- where people move freely across borders.
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