GENEVA (AP)
-- A World Health Organization official says there could be up to 10,000
new cases of Ebola per week within two months.
WHO
assistant director-general Dr. Bruce Aylward says if the response to
the Ebola crisis isn't stepped up within 60 days, "a lot more people
will die" and there will be a huge need on the ground to deal with the
spiraling numbers of cases. He said WHO estimated there could up to
10,000 cases per week in two months.
Aylward
said for the last four weeks, there have been about 1,000 new cases per
week, though that figure includes suspected, confirmed and probable
cases. He said WHO is aiming to have 70 percent of cases isolated within
two months to reverse the outbreak.
WHO
increased its Ebola death toll tally to 4,447, nearly all of them in
West Africa, and the group said the number of probable and suspected
cases was 8,914.
Sierra Leone, Guinea and
Liberia have been hardest hit. Aylward said WHO was very concerned about
the continued spread of Ebola in the three countries' capital cities
-Freetown, Conakry and Monrovia. He noted that while certain areas were
seeing cases decline, "that doesn't mean they will get to zero."
He
said the agency was still focused on trying to treat Ebola patients,
despite the huge demands on the broken health systems in West Africa.
"It
would be horrifically unethical to say that we're just going to isolate
people," he said, noting that new strategies like handing out
protective equipment to families and setting up very basic clinics -
without much treatment - was a priority.http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WHO_EBOLA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
