GENEVA // The death rate of the Ebola outbreak in west Africa has risen to 70 per cent, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.
“What we’re finding is 70 per cent mortality,” said Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of WHO.
WHO had previously estimated the Ebola mortality rate was at around 50 per cent.
The number of cases is continuing to spiral in the three hardest-hit countries – Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
“It could reach 5,000 to 10,000 cases per week by the first week of December,” Mr Aylward said, underlining that the estimate was just a working forecast to help guide the international fight against the virus.
This comes as the United Nations atomic agency said it would help West African countries fight the Ebola epidemic with nuclear-related technology that can quickly diagnose the disease.
Specialised equipment is expected to be delivered in coming weeks to Sierra Leone and then to Liberia and Guinea, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Tuesday.
IAEA director general Yukiya Amano said it was a “small but effective contribution” to efforts to combat the outbreak that has killed more than 4,400 people so far.
Mr Aylward warned that if the world’s response to the Ebola crisis is not stepped up within 60 days, “a lot more people will die” and that health workers will be stretched even further dealing with the spiralling numbers of cases, including health-care workers.
International aid organisation Doctors Without Borders (DWB) said nine out of 16 of its staff members infected with Ebola have died.
Sharon Ekambaram, the head of DWB in South Africa, said medical workers have received inadequate assistance from the international community.
“Where is WHO Africa? Where is the African Union?” said Dr Ekambaram, who worked in Sierra Leone from August to September. “We’ve all heard their promises in the media, but have seen very little on the ground.”
WHO increased its Ebola death toll tally to 4,447 people on Tuesday, nearly all of them in West Africa, from 8,914 cases.
In Berlin, a UN medical worker infected with Ebola in Liberia died despite “intensive medical procedures”. The St Georg hospital in Leipzig said on Tuesday that the 56-year-old man, whose name has not been released, died overnight.
The man tested positive for Ebola on October 6, prompting Liberia’s UN peacekeeping mission to place 41 other staff members under “close medical observation”.
The hospital’s chief executive, Dr Iris Minde, said at the time there was no risk of infection for other people, since he was kept in a secure isolation ward specially equipped with negative pressure rooms that are hermetically sealed.
He was the third Ebola patient to be flown to Germany for treatment. The first man recovered and returned home to Senegal, while the second, a Ugandan aid worker, is still being treated in Frankfurt.
In Spain, the government’s Ebola monitoring committee said the assistant nurse infected with the virus had improved slightly and remains stable but is still in a serious condition.
The nurse, Teresa Romero, contracted the disease after treating a Spanish missionary who fell victim to the disease while in West Africa and died at the Madrid hospital last month.
Fifteen people who came into contact with Ms Romero and who are being monitored at the hospital have not shown any Ebola symptoms.
In the US, a Texas nurse who caught Ebola while treating a Liberian patient has received a plasma transfusion donated by a doctor who beat the virus.
Nina Pham was among about 70 staff members at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas who cared for Thomas Eric Duncan, who succumbed to the disease.
Meanwhile, Facebook’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday that he and his wife would donate $25 million (Dh91.8m) to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation to fight Ebola.
“We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn’t spread further and become a long-term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
For the last month, there has been about 1,000 new Ebola cases per week – including suspected, confirmed and probable cases, said Mr Aylward from WHO.
He said the organisation is aiming to get 70 per cent of cases isolated by December to reverse the outbreak.
While some regions have seen the number of Ebola cases stabilise or fall, Mr Aylward said “that doesn’t mean they will get down to zero”.
He said the WHO 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 was a priority.
* Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters
