Ebola's grim milestone: more deaths than past outbreaks combined

Geneva: Deaths from Ebola in West Africa have surpassed 1900, more than in all previous outbreaks combined, as a lack of health workers and fear of the often-fatal illness keep infections hidden and fuel the spread of the disease.

Since the virus surfaced in Guinea in December, more than 3500 people have been infected, World Health Organisation Director-General Margaret Chan said on Wednesday in Washington. In 24 earlier outbreaks, including the first recorded one in 1976, 1590 people died, statistics from the Geneva-based agency show.

The number of cases may exceed 20,000 before the epidemic is controlled, WHO said last week in announcing a plan to respond to the outbreak. Months of work are needed to bring the situation in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia under control, Ms Chan wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine last month.

The unexpected appearance of the virus in countries that hadn't had it before, and which have weak health systems, contributed to the worsening of the epidemic, said Andrew Easton of the University of Warwick.

"Nobody would have predicted the appearance of this in West Africa," Dr Easton, a virologist, said. "It was entirely unexpected in that regard, and there was no local experience, which inevitably means there's a delay in the response."

After aid groups criticised WHO's initial reaction, the agency accelerated its effort. The outbreak also has jump-started programs to develop drugs and vaccines against Ebola, which kills more than half of those infected. The virus has since spread to Nigeria and Senegal, and an unrelated outbreak has occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo.


More than 240 health workers have contracted Ebola, an unprecedented number, and more than 120 of them have died, WHO said last week. Among the dead are prominent doctors in Sierra Leone and Liberia, robbing those countries of experienced medical personnel and thwarting outbreak control.

Ebola is passed to people through the blood and other secretions of wild animals such as chimpanzees, gorillas, bats and porcupines, according to WHO.

Humans transmit the virus to each other through direct contact with blood and other body fluids. Early symptoms include a sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. That's followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, a rash, and sometimes, both internal and external bleeding.

Ebola in the past has been seen almost exclusively in central and eastern Africa. The virus was named for a river in what is now the Congo, where the first recorded outbreak occurred.

The large number of cases in the current outbreak, more than eight times that of the next-largest outbreak in Uganda in 2000, has sown fear that Ebola will spread to more populous nations on other continents.

Numerous false alarms occurred from Singapore to the United States as travellers from the affected nations arrived with a fever or other Ebola-like symptoms. None has tested positive for Ebola.

Washington Post