WHO Sees Ebola Cases as High as 10,000 a Week in West Africa by December 1st
Here is the opening for this sobering article from Bloomberg:
The number of new Ebola cases in three West African nations may jump to between 5,000 and 10,000 a week by Dec. 1 as the deadly viral infection spreads, the World Health Organization said.
The outbreak is still expanding geographically in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and accelerating in capital cities, Bruce Aylward, the WHO’s assistant director-general in charge of the Ebola response, said in a briefing with reporters in Geneva. There have been about 1,000 new cases a week for the past three to four weeks and the virus is killing at least 70 percent of those it infects, he said.
“Any sense that the great effort that’s been kicked off over the last couple of months is already starting to see an impact, that would be really, really premature,” Aylward said. “The virus is still moving geographically and still escalating in capitals, and that’s what concerns me.”
There’s no cure for Ebola, which jumps to humans from animals such as fruit bats and chimpanzees. The virus spreads from contact with bodily fluids such as blood, vomit and feces. Burial practices in West Africa, where mourners come in contact with corpses, have fueled the spread.
To bring the outbreak under control, there needs to be a common operational plan among all aid groups and governments, Aylward said. That means having people in every county or district responsible for burials, finding infected people and tracing who they’ve been in contact with, and isolating those who are ill and managing their care, he said.
Meaning no disrespect to the World Health Organization, trend extrapolation forecasts in any field are highly subjective. Moreover, WHO may be issuing a worst case forecast to ensure that there is a maximum effort to contain and reduce the spread of Ebola. Health workers are usually dedicated people and I would not underestimate the extent of their efforts to contain this disease, although it will take time.
Today, the only certainty regarding Ebola is that it is still spreading. To the extent that this continues, it can only slow the previously modest rate of economic recover that the world has been experiencing.
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