“Collateral” death toll expected to soar in Africa’s Ebola crisis
CNBCAfrica.com
27 September 2014
This follows after a vast outbreak of Ebola has crushed health systems and killed nurses and doctors.
Specialists on deadly diseases say deaths from malaria alone, which even before the Ebola crisis killed around 100,000 a year in the West Africa region as a whole, could increase four-fold in Ebola-hit countries as people miss out on life-saving treatments.
Even at this point, said Professor Chris Whitty of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London, in countries facing the worst of the Ebola outbreak, “many more people are dying of other things that are not Ebola”.
As the epidemic continues, these so-called “collateral” deaths — including from complications in childbirth and chronic conditions such as heart disease — will rise as the clinics and health workers that would normally treat them are overwhelmed.
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