Monday, September 1, 2014

WHO: Ebola Virus Outbreak Could Hit 20,000 Within Nine Months

The World Health Organization warned Thursday that the number of people affected by the Ebola virus could rise to 20,000 within the next nine months and a projected half a billion dollars would be needed to fund efforts aimed at stopping the spread of the disease.
In a document released Thursday, the U.N. health body said the outbreak of the disease "continues to accelerate." More than 40% of reported cases have occurred within the last three weeks, the report said.
As of Aug. 28, health authorities in the four affected nations—Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone—have reported 3,069 cases of the disease since the outbreak started in December. The disease, a virus that causes a fever so high it punctures blood vessels to cause internal bleeding, has already killed 1,552 people.
There is no vaccine to treat the disease.
The Geneva-based WHO said in its report, which it dubbed a road map for responding to Ebola, strengthening laboratory facilities and adding staff with more expertise in the disease were necessary to containing the outbreak. Public health infrastructure needed to be improved to cope with future threats.
The road map assumes "that in many areas of intense transmission the actual number of cases may be four fold higher than currently reported."
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