WHO estimates 10,000 New Ebola Cases a Week

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that West Africa could see as many as 10.000 new cases of Ebola a week within two months. It also said that death rate in the present outbreak has risen to 70 percent from the earlier estimated rate of 50 percent.

Presenting the estimates at a news conference in Geneva, WHO assistant director Dr. Bruce Aylward  said that the new rates confirmed that Ebola was a high mortality disease.  He said that WHO was focussed on getting sick people isolated and providing treatment to Ebola victims as early as possible.

Aylward said that if the response to Ebola was not speeded up within 60 days, a lot of people would die and the work load on the health workers would increase.

Elaborating further, Aylward said that WHO was worried about the continuous spread of Ebola in Freetown, Conakry and Monrovia, the capital cities of Liberia, Guinea and Monrovia respectively, as people travel freely across the borders in these countries.

Stating that  there was no evidence of countries hiding Ebla cases, Aylward said that countries like Ivory coast, Mali, and Guinea Bissau, which border the Ebola affected nations, are at a higher risked of importing the disease,  reports the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, charity organisation Doctors without Borders said that 16 of its personnel had contracted Ebola and nine of them had died.

Sharon Ekambaram , head of the charity's South Africa unit said Tuesday that  the international community was giving very little assistance to health workers.

"Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?" said Ekambaram. "We've all heard their promises in the media but have seen very little on the ground."

WHO director Margaret Chan said Monday that the Ebola outbreak has proved that the world is ill prepared to respond to any severe, continuous and threatening public health emergency. 

 "I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries.

"I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure," she said in a statement to a regional health conference in Manila, reports The Telegraph.