Ebola cases could exceed 20,000 before outbreak stemmed: WHO

Zee Media Bureau

Geneva: The rare but deadly virus, Ebola has induced panic all over the world. According to WHO, caseload in West Africa's epidemic could eventually top 20,000.

Efforts are made to deal with this virus and WHO in the new anti-Ebola plan said it aimed to reverse the trend within three months, with the final aim of stopping "all residual transmission within 6-9 months".

Till date, WHO has recorded 3,069 cases of Ebola virus disease and 1,552 deaths in West Africa -Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

"This Roadmap assumes that in many areas of intense transmission the actual number of cases may be 2-4 fold higher than that currently reported," it said.

"It acknowledges that the aggregate case load of (Ebola) could exceed 20,000 over the course of this emergency," it added.

The WHO assumed that if the correct emergency programmes are applied, West African countries may contain the contagion in a period of eight weeks.

With Agency Inputs