The current
Ebola outbreak in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people, the
World Health Organisation has revealed in a bleak assessment of the
deadly disease.
The
United Nations health agency issued plans to combat the outbreak in
four West African nations - Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria -
where it said the actual number of cases could already be two to four
times higher than the reported 3,069. The current death toll stands at
1,552.
The
news comes as a new outbreak was confirmed in the Democratic Republic
of Congo after a pregnant woman contracted the disease from infected
bush meat and passed it on to health workers.
Treatment: The World Health
Organisation has revealed plans to combat Ebola in four West African
nations - Guinea (pictured), Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria - where
it said the actual number of cases could already be far higher than the
reported 3,069. The death toll in the West African epidemic alone
currently stands at 1,552
Grim: A group of young volunteers wear
special uniforms for the burial of people in Kptema graveyard in
Kenema, Sierra Leone earlier this week. The victims' bodies are
sterilized after dying from the virus
Describing
plans to tackle the West African outbreak, the WHO said: 'This roadmap
assumes that in many areas of intense transmission the actual number of
cases may be two-four fold higher than that currently reported.'
'It
acknowledges that the aggregate case load of Ebola Virus Disease could
exceed 20,000 over the course of this emergency,' the agency added.
The deadly
West African outbreak that began in Guinea in March and has since spread
to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, requires a massive and
coordinated international response, the WHO said.
'Response
activities must be adapted in areas of very intense transmission and
particular attention must be given to stopping transmission in capital
cities and major ports, thereby facilitating the larger response and
relief effort,' the WHO said.
The
virus is still being spread in a 'substantial number of localities',
aggravating fragile social and economic conditions and has already
killed an unprecedented number of health workers.
Today
it was revealed that Nigeria has confirmed its first Ebola death
outside the city of Lagos, with a doctor succumbing to the virus in the
oil hub Port Harcourt last Friday.
A further 70 people are now under surveillance in the city, with the man's wife among those that have been placed in quarantine.
Protection: The current Ebola outbreak
in West Africa - which began in Guinea (pictured) - could infect more
than 20,000 people, the World Health Organisation has revealed in a
bleak assessment of the deadly disease
A woman washes her child with salted
water in a suburb of the Côte d’Ivoire capital Abidjan. The woman was
relying on a rumor that was spread in the area claiming that salted
water helps to fight against the deadly virus
A
wider U.N.-led plan being launched by the end of September is 'expected
to underpin support for the increasingly acute problems associated with
food security, protection, water, sanitation and hygiene, primary and
secondary health care and education, as well as the longer-term recovery
effort that will be needed,' the WHO said in today's report.
A
separate outbreak of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo - identified
as a different strain and thought to have started when a pregnant woman
contracted the virus from infected bush meat - is not included in the
WHO's forecast.
An
unnamed woman in the village of Ikanamongo in DRC's northern Equateur
Province is believed to have butchered an animal that had been captured
and killed by her husband shortly before falling ill.
The
woman was subsequently transported to a private clinic in nearby Isaka
village for specialist care due to her pregnancy, but she subsequently
died of a then-unidentified haemorrhagic fever.
The
Ebola then infected and killed a number of the woman's relatives and
health care workers due to local customs and rituals carried out on her
corpse that delayed her funeral by more than a week.
Infection zone: People stand on the
shoreline near a sign reading 'No Dumping', amongst rubbish at West
Point - an area of the Liberian capital Monrovia that is badly hit by
the Ebola virus
Lock down: Local residents not allowed
to leave the West Point area, as Liberian government forces clamp down
on movement to prevent the spread of Ebola in the capital city Monrovia
The
DRC's Ministry of Health notified the World Health Organization of the
outbreak on Tuesday, following the woman's death on August 11.
Since
then a number of her relatives and at least four health-care workers
who were exposed to her corpse have died, and there a reports several
others are seriously ill.
In
a report, WHO blamed 'local customs and rituals associated with death'
for delaying the woman's burial and dramatically increasing the number
of people coming into close contact with her body.
Between
28 July and 18 August this year, a total of 24 suspected cases of Ebola
have been identified in the DRC, leading to at least 13 deaths.
It
is Congo's seventh outbreak since the deadly hemorrhagic fever was
discovered in 1976 in the same isolated northwestern jungle province in
which the pregnant woman died.
Spread: Nurses wearing protective
suits enter a Liberian village in order to search for a man suspected of
being infected with the deadly Ebola virus. The man was later taken to a
hospital in Monrovia for treatment
Crucially,
the strain currently infecting people in DRC is different to that which
has already killed at least 1,427 people in West Africa - which has
somewhat allayed fears that the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history
could have somehow travelled thousands of miles to the continent's
centre.
Among
the healthcare workers known to have died shortly after coming in to
contact with the pregnant woman are one doctor and two nurses who
performed her surgery, a male ward assistant, and a hygiene specialist
working in the clinic.
WHO
said an unknown number of her relatives involved in 'local customs and
rituals' relating to her death have also now died, without expanding on
what those practices might have been.
A
further 11 cases are being held in isolation centres suffering the
suspected symptoms of the disease - which kills in the vast majority of
cases - with tissue samples sent to laboratories in the DRC's capital
Kinshasa, and in neighbouring Gabon for further analysis.
In
total it is believed at least 80 people came into close enough contact
to contract the virus from the pregnant woman between the time of her
infection and eventual burial.
In response
to the outbreak, the DRC's Ministry of Health has dispatched teams of
scientists and investigators to Equateur Province in order to evaluate
the situation there and work out how many other people may be at risk -
either from human-to-human transmission or from infected bush meat.
Neither
the deceased pregnant woman nor any of her 80 contacts have any history
of travel to the areas of West Africa currently hit by an alternative
strain of Ebola.
 |
| Tragic: A Liberian man in a truck looks down on another man believed to be dying from the Ebola virus, in one of the main streets on the outskirts of the capital city Monrovia earlier this week |
News
of the DRC outbreak comes as U.S. health officials prepared to announce
that a human study of an Ebola vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline will
begin within a couple of weeks.
The
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the
National Institutes of Health, will start the study no later than the
end of the year, according to people familiar with the plans.
In
addition, a steering committee made up of senior officials from NIH and
the Department of Defense last week approved the first step toward
using three advanced laboratories to manufacture Ebola vaccines and
treatments.
The
three labs, in Texas, Maryland and North Carolina, were set up in 2012
by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in partnership with
private industry to respond to pandemics or chemical, biological,
radiological or nuclear threats.
A GSK spokeswoman confirmed that the trial would begin but declined to specify when.
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