WHO: Ebola outbreak accelerating

(Vatican Radio) The Ebola outbreak in West Africa eventually could exceed 20,000 cases, more than six times as many as doctors know about now, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

A new plan to stop Ebola by the U.N. health agency also assumes that in many hard-hit areas, the actual number of cases may be two to four times higher than is currently reported.

The agency published new figures saying that 1,552 people have died from the killer virus from among the 3,069 cases reported so far in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. At least 40 percent of the cases have been in just the last three weeks, the U.N. health agency said, adding that “the outbreak continues to accelerate.”

Among the agencies helping to confront the disease is the US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Director of the CDC, Dr Tom Frieden is in West Africa. At a press conference in Liberia yesterday, he said the outbreak is the worst the world has seen.

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