W.H.O. Forecast for Ebola Worsens as Disease’s Footprint Widens
By RICK GLADSTONE and NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
NYTimes.com
OCT. 14, 2014
The World Health Organization reported sobering new figures Tuesday about the Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa, saying the number of new cases could reach 10,000 per week by December, about 10 times the rate of the past four weeks.
While the number of deaths so far is roughly half the number of confirmed, probable or suspected cases, the organization also said that the mortality rate is closer to 70 percent.
The updated figures were provided by Dr. Bruce Aylward, the health organization’s assistant director general, during a telephone news conference from its Geneva headquarters.
He said that as of Tuesday, the total number of confirmed, probable or suspected Ebola cases over the course of the epidemic had reached 8,914, with 4,447 deaths. The vast majority are in the three most afflicted countries: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Just on Friday, the organization said that the deaths totaled 4,024 — indicating that hundreds more people have died in a matter of days.
Dr. Aylward, an infectious diseases specialist who just completed a visit to West Africa, said the survival rate was now “30 percent at most in these countries, ” even as the international campaign to fight it has escalated.
The Rest…HERE
