Ebola Casualties Pass 1,900, WHO Reveals

Dr. Kent Brantly, who contracted the deadly Ebola virus, stands with wife Amber during a press conference at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on Aug. 21, 2014

Latest reports inform that no fewer than 1,900 people have now died from the outbreak of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, in West Africa.

According to a statement released on Wednesday, 3 September, 2014, by the World Health Organisation, WHO, apart from the 1,900 casualties, there have been 3,500 confirmed or probable cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
“The outbreaks are racing ahead of the control efforts in these countries,” WHO chief Margaret Chan said.
It was gathered that the WHO is meeting on Thursday (today) to examine the most promising treatments and to discuss how to fast-track testing and production.

BBC reports that disease control experts, medical researchers, officials from affected countries, and specialists in medical ethics will all be represented at the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.
It would be recalled that the WHO warned few days ago that at least $600m (£360m) are needed to fight the virus, and more than 20,000 people could be infected before the outbreak is brought under control.
Speaking on the outbreak of the dreaded disease in West Africa, Ms Chan said, “the largest and most severe and most complex we have ever seen”.

“No-one, even outbreak responders with experience dating back to 1976, to 1995, people that were directly involved with those outbreaks, none of them have ever seen anything like it,” she said.
WHO had informed that more than 40% of Ebola deaths have occurred in three weeks leading up to 3 September, indicating that the epidemic is fast outpacing efforts to control it.
On Wednesday,  Nigerian Ministry of Health announced the death of another Ebola patient in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

There had previously only been one case outside the city of Lagos, where five people have died from the virus since a Liberian diplomat, the late Patrick Sawyer imported the virus to Lagos on 20 July, 2014.
“The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Port Harcourt has the potential to grow larger and spread faster than the one in Lagos,” the WHO warned.