Disease

Ebola Outbreak - West Africa

The world could be dealing with more than a million cases of Ebola by January if efforts to tackle the disease outbreak are not drastically escalated, experts will warn.

There are currently an estimated 5,800 people who have suffered from the deadly illness in West Africa, six months on from the first cases reported to the World Health Organisation.

Despite a huge international response effort, the number of cases is still increasing exponentially, and will hit 21,000 within six weeks according to analysis published today in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

But in a separate report seen in draft by The Associated Press, the US’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is expected to provide the far direr long-term prediction of cases reaching seven figures by the new year.

UN agencies are also struggling with the issue of huge underreporting of cases. The WHO noted today that in hardest-hit Liberia, precise numbers will never be known because the bodies of those dying in a crowded slum of the capital are simply being thrown into rivers.