Ebola death rate reaches around 70%, says WHO

Ibrahim Sorie Kamara looks after his child as they await transport to the holding centre in the Port Loko Government Hospital for those suspected of having Ebola virus. Kamara’s wife and other family members, also suspected of having Ebola virus disease, had passed away earlier this month.

AFP

The death rate in the Ebola epidemic raging in West Africa has reached around 70%, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

"What we're finding is 70% mortality," said Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of the WHO.

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," Aylward said, though he underlined that that was just a working forecast to help guide the international fight against the virus.

"It's been running at about a thousand cases a week now for about three to four weeks," he told reporters in Geneva. "The labs sometimes can't keep up with the amount of specimens they're getting," he added, saying the real case-count and death toll remained unclear as a result.

The latest case-count in the Ebola outbreak is 8,914, with a death toll of 4,447.

The overwhelming majority of the cases are still in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, Aylward said. On paper, that suggests a survival rate of 50%, but the figures mask the true picture, he underlined.

The international community has stepped up its anti-Ebola fight, with the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) launching a strategy to try to rein in the disease.

Known as the "70-70-60" plan, it ensures that 70% of burials are conducted safely and 70% of suspected cases isolated, within 60 days.

"These targets could turn the tide of the disease," Aylward said, adding that the international community was "pushing the system hard" to reach it.

Ebola spreads via the body fluids of patients, and can even be passed on by their corpses, meaning that there have been massive efforts to stem traditional funeral rights that involve touching a body.

Aylward noted that each Ebola patient infected around two other people, on average.

"Every time you isolate another patient, every time you have a safe burial, you're taking some of the heat out if this outbreak," said Aylward.

"But this is Ebola. This is a horrible, unforgiving disease. You've got to get to zero. And what gets you down to a level of control may not be -- and usually isn't -- what's going to get you down to zero," he said.

Facebook's Zuckerberg to donate $25mn to tackle Ebola

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, would donate $25mn 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," Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post.