TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The number of Ebola victims in West Africa may be four times higher than has been reported and could exceed 20,000 before the disease is brought under control, the World Health Organization has admitted.
New figures published by the UN health agency today suggested that 3,069 people have been infected by the virus and 1,552 people have died in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.
But the WHO said the outbreak was ‘continuing to accelerate’ and warned that the true number of victims could be already around 12,000.
The Harvard University-led study also found that the disease had jumped to Sierra Leone after 13 women became infected at the funeral of an herbalist – a traditional healer who had been treating Ebola patients in Guinea.
It is customary in African burial rituals for mourners to embrace the body of the deceased, and health agencies have warned that this could spread the disease.
The authors found that the recent strain spread from Middle Africa within the last decade, probably through fruit bats.
The study has also highlighted the high toll that the disease has taken on health workers and scientists. Of the 50 co-authors who helped collect the data, five have since died from Ebola.
Stephen Gire, a research scientist at Harvard, said: “There is an extraordinary battle still ahead, and we have lost many friends and colleagues already like our good friend and colleague Dr Humarr Khan, a co-senior author here.”
The WHO yesterday said that controlling the outbreak would cost an extra £300 million over the next nine months and require more than 12,750 emergency workers.
Dr Bruce Aylward, WHO's assistant director-general for emergency operations, said the current crisis ‘far outstrips’ any historic Ebola outbreak.
"What we are seeing today, in contrast to previous Ebola outbreaks: multiple hotspots within these countries - not a single, remote forested area, the kind of environments that have been tackled in the past.
TELEGRAPH | SUNDARI
