The World Health Organization (WHO) says the death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has now reached 7,905, out of the total 20,206 confirmed and suspected cases. The update was released on Wednesday before the year when the worst Ebola outbreak in history has come to an end.
Almost all deaths and cases were recorded in the three Ebola-ravaged countries in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Experts and health officials say that the outbreak may drop by the end of 2015. WHO say that the overall rate of infection and virus transmission in Sierra Leone has slowed down. Today, Sierra Leone has a total of 9.446 cases and 2,758 deaths.
However, Sierra Leone has overtaken Liberia as the country with most number of infections. The infection rate of Ebola in Liberia has drastically dropped over the past month wherein they had a recorded 8,018 cases and 3,423 deaths. Meanwhile, Giunea, where the outbreak originally started over a year ago, has 2,707 cases and 1,708 deaths.
The virus has also killed many health care workers from West Africa and other countries. As of December 28, a total of 678 health care workers were infected with the virus and 382 of them, died.
In related news, the Scottish nurse who was infected with Ebola is now receiving an experimental antiviral drug and plasma taken from the blood of an Ebola survivor. The unnamed nurse was transferred to London for treatment. She contracted the virus after a volunteer work in Sierra Leone.
Health officials declined to mention and specify the exact experimental serum but they hope that the nurse would recover from the hemorrhagic disease. The nurse is currently confined at the Royal Free Hospital in London. She is the first ever case of Ebola in the United Kingdom.
