WHO predicts Ebola cases in west Africa will soar up to tenfold

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The Ebola epidemic in west Africa is set to reach a peak of between 5,000 and 10,000 cases a week by early December – up to 10 times the current official figure – before international action is likely to reverse the rise, the World Health Organisation has predicted.

Dr Bruce Aylward, who recently took charge of the WHO’s operational response to the crisis, also warned on Tuesday not to misinterpret the official Ebola lethality numbers. The latest figures show 8,914 cases and 4,447 deaths so far, suggesting that about half the patients recover, but may only show half the real toll.

Tracing of individual cases shows “at best 30 per cent survival,” Dr Aylward said at WHO’s Geneva headquarters. “We’re finding 70 per cent mortality consistently across the three countries.”

The WHO is following what it calls a 70-70-60 plan to turn the tide against Ebola. That means achieving a target of isolating 70 cent of suspected new cases, and burying 70 per cent of those who die safely without risk of infecting others, within the next 60 days.

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Dr Aylward said there were some districts hard hit by Ebola where the number of new cases seemed to be falling but others including the capitals of the three worst affected countries, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, where the outbreak was still increasing.

There is also concern that Ebola is extending its geographical spread within Liberia and Guinea, particularly along the borders with the Ivory Coast.

“Any sense that the great international effort that has kicked off over the past two months is already starting to have an impact would be really premature,” he said.

Dr Aylward predicted that the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, involving the WHO and other UN agencies, together with health workers and medical equipment promised by countries around the world – and beginning to arrive in west Africa – would “bend the curve” of the epidemic by early December.

“We anticipate that the number of cases [per week] occurring by that time will be 5,000 to 10,000,” he said. “It could be higher, it could lower, but it’s going to be in that ballpark.”

When the epidemic begins to wane, he added, it was important that the effort did not slacken because the aim must be completely to wipe out Ebola in west Africa, rather than allowing it to become an endemic disease.