GENEVA
— The World Health Organization said on Thursday that the Ebola
epidemic was still accelerating and could afflict more than 20,000
people — almost seven times the current number of reported cases —
before it could be brought under control.
The
dire forecast was made as the health organization reported that the
number of known cases and fatalities had risen once again. The
organization also acknowledged that in areas of intense transmission
“the actual number of cases may be two to four times higher than that
currently reported.”
The outbreak “continues to accelerate,” the organization said.
According to the latest figures
released by the health organization on Thursday, the total cases had
risen to 3,069, with 1,552 deaths, in four West African countries:
Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
Though
the disease was identified in March, “more than 40 percent of the total
number of cases have occurred within the past 21 days,” the
organization said. “However, most cases are concentrated in only a few
localities.”
Photo
Officials handing out food in
West Point, Liberia, a region hit hard by Ebola. The death toll from
the disease has risen to 1,552 in four countries: Guinea, Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Nigeria.Credit
Abbas Dulleh/Associated Press
The assessment came as the organization presented what it called a road map
for stopping the transmission of Ebola within nine months. The plans
are likely to cost nearly half a billion dollars over the next six
months.
Though
the road map aims to stop the epidemic in that time frame, “We have to
be realistic that there is uncertainty” about such targets, Bruce
Aylward, an assistant director general of the health organization, told
reporters in Geneva.
With
many centers for treating the disease now too full to take new
patients, it was necessary to find and expand other approaches to
contain the spread of the disease, the organization said.
The
road map assumes that a number of countries that are not now affected
by the epidemic could become so, but also asserts that the procedures it
sets out could stop any new transmissions within eight weeks of the
first case being identified.
“That’s
extremely aggressive,” Mr. Aylward said, acknowledging such speedy
containment had been achieved only in remote locations, not in the
crowded urban centers now affected.
The
road map came as Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the United States
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the epidemic
could get worse before it gets better. Dr. Frieden called for quicker
international help and cooperation to control its spread.
Doctors
Without Borders, which is battling the disease in the region, welcomed
the road map but cautioned against taking a “false sense of hope” from
it.
In
a sign of the difficulties facing governments seeking to contain the
disease, the health authorities in Nigeria reported on Thursday for the
first time that the disease had spread beyond Lagos, its commercial
capital, to claim another death.
How some modern technologies — from airport screening to cellphones — may help in the fight to contain the Ebola virus.
Video Credit By Emily B. Hager and Christian Roman on
Publish Date August 16, 2014.
In
its statement on Thursday, the World Health Organization said the
countries hit hardest by the epidemic — Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone
— were “struggling to control the escalating outbreak against a
backdrop of severely compromised health systems, significant deficits in
capacity, and rampant fear.”
Mr. Aylward, picking out details of the road map, said it would take at least 750 international and 12,000 local health workers.
“That
is very difficult in the current environment,” he added, alluding to
fears arising from the high number of medical workers — 250 as of Monday
— who had contracted the disease. Recruiting international staff may be
harder than finding local personnel, he added, debunking the notion
that locals were running away from the crisis.
Health workers were getting infected because they were exhausted from working extraordinary hours, Mr. Aylward said.
The
road map emphasized the need to halt transmission of the disease in
major cities and ports, and underscored the importance of keeping air
and shipping links operating to deliver medical supplies, personal
protection equipment, food and other goods to fight the outbreak.
Guinea,
Liberia and Sierra Leone are facing severe economic downturns as they
struggle to cope with the Ebola outbreak, the African Development Bank
reported on Thursday. On Wednesday, British Airways said it was
suspending flights to Liberia and Sierra Leone because of Ebola
concerns. Air France followed suit on Thursday.
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