More than 1 million Ebola cases may hit West Africa by January
CDC and World Health Organization offer dire predictions for epidemic
By Nathan Seppa and Janet Raloff
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa could cause more than 1 million casualties unless improved isolation and treatment of patients are put in place, new projections of the outbreak suggest. Without drastic improvements, weekly cases of Ebola should increase from hundreds to thousands, World Health Organization officials and others report in the New England Journal of Medicine September 23. In less than six weeks, the scientists say, the number of infections could surpass 20,000.
The report’s authors also calculate that the fatality rate of this year’s infections is about 71 percent, substantially higher than earlier estimates of around 50 percent.