WHO: Nearly 3,000 dead from Ebola. Health worker fatalities revised upward.
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Version 0 of 1. The World Health Organization’s latest report says 2,909 people have died so far from the Ebola epidemic out of a total of 6,242 cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, up from about 5,800. It expressed alarm about under-reporting from Liberia, noting that country had reported no new cases in recent weeks. That differs from “credible reports obtained from responders in Liberia, who indicate a deterioration of the situation in the country, and in Monrovia in particular,” it said. The report also revised upward the number of healthcare workers who died from the disease in Sierra Leone, from 31 as reported on Sept. 18 to 61 as of Sept. 22. Similarly, it revised upward its figures on the number of health care workers who have the disease from 74 to 96. In all of the stricken countries, it said, a total of 208 healthcare workers have now died. Such figures are considered catastrophic because there were so few healthcare workers to begin with. WHO also said “significant gaps” remain in the number of beds available in the stricken countries, nothing it hopes this will soon be boosted by a deployment from the United States promised by President Obama. Earlier this week, two “worst-case scenario” studies said the epidemic could potentially infect 1.4 million people by the end of January.
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