The World Health Organization fears that the Ebola outbreak that is now sweeping countries in West Africa could affect more than 20,000 people within the next few months.
At the moment, about 50% of confirmed cases of infection have resulted to deaths due to the Ebola virus disease. If this trend carries on, the WHO says that the death toll could easily reach 10,000 if the outbreak is not contained. According to the latest statistics furnished by the United Nations, 1,552 people have now died from Ebola out of the 3,069 patients in Nigeria, Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone. However, officials say that the actual number of infected people in the hard-hit areas across the region may actually be 2 to 4 times higher than that because they fear that not all cases are being reported. This theory suggests that there could already be more than 12,000 possible Ebola cases. Dr. Bruce Aylward, assistant director general for the WHO's emergency operations, says. "This far outstrips any historic Ebola outbreak in numbers. The largest outbreak in the past was about 400 cases." The United Nations health agency reports that over 40% of the cases in the latest report have been identified over the last three weeks, but they are expecting this number to change as "the outbreak continues to accelerate."
Meanwhile, the United States National Institutes of Health have announced that it will be conducting clinical trials of experimental Ebola vaccines on humans beginning next week. The US government in cooperation with pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline developed the vaccine, and preliminary human testing will initially be conducted on healthy American adults in Maryland. British Health experts will also be tested simultaneously the vaccines on healthy subjects across the UK, Mali, and Gambia. These entities would like to make sure if the vaccine could be used safely and made available within the following months. The newly formulated global plan is to stop the transmission of the Ebola virus within 6 to 9 months in the affected countries, which may also prevented from spreading internationally.