Expert computer modelling by American scientists suggests the number of infections could eventually amount to hundreds of thousands of people without an effective international intervention.
That’s a huge jump from the latest World Health Organisation statistics showing confirmed and suspected cases not yet topping 5000, including 2461 deaths.
It’s also a big leap from the WHO’s own projections suggesting the number of infections could reach 20,000 by mid next year, a forecast criticised by some as too conservative.
In the past three weeks alone, infections have almost doubled. The speed of the epidemic’s spread is so great scientists have likened it to the medical equivalent of an out-of-control bushfire.
Dr Myrto Schaefer, of Medicins Sans Frontieres, a non-government organisation struggling to cope with the scale of the crisis, tells The Courier-Mail, “Patients are dying in the streets from Ebola.”
“They’re banging on our doors and we cannot admit them because our health structures are completely overwhelmed. We’re building crematoria now for bodies because the bodies are just piling up.”
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Ebola: From one boy in Africa to an epidemic killing 1000s
If the bodies are piling up on the streets (if that is what this means) the disease will be spread in various ways just by the dead bodies lying there exposed to flies, rats, dogs, carrion eating birds etc. And what about the people with Ebola that have hidden away with their families so they wouldn't die alone in a hospital somewhere?
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