Ebola cases ‘to explode without drastic action’

GENEVA: The number of Ebola infections is set to explode unless the response is radically intensified, the WHO warned on Tuesday, predicting tens of thousands of cases by the end of the year.
The UN agency said in a report that new cases would increase from hundreds each week to thousands without “drastic improvements in control measures,” with infections more than tripling to 20,000 by November.
“We’ve rather modestly only extended the projections to Nov. 2, but if you go to... Jan. 2, you’re into hundreds of thousands,” said Christopher Dye, the head of strategy at the World Health Organization and a co-author of the study.
The research paper warns that the outbreak could drag out for years and become entrenched in west Africa, which has already seen almost 3,000 deaths.
The epidemic might simply “rumble on as it has for the last few months for the next few years,” Dye said, stressing that “the fear is that Ebola will become more or less a permanent feature of the human population.”
Liberia, the hardest-hit nation, has seen 3,000 cases and almost 1,600 deaths, with health workers turning people away from treatment units due to chronic shortages of beds and staff.
The country has some 150 foreign specialized medical workers on the ground and needs at least 600, and it is aiming to scale its current 400 Ebola beds up to around 2,000 within weeks. Its response has been bolstered by a US military mission, already deploying, which will see 3,000 troops providing training and logistics.