Free Republic

As of September 14, 2014, a total of 4507 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD), as well as 2296 deaths from the virus, had been reported from five countries in West Africa — Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. In terms of reported morbidity and mortality, the current epidemic of EVD is far larger than all previous epidemics combined. The true numbers of cases and deaths are certainly higher. There are numerous reports of symptomatic persons evading diagnosis and treatment, of laboratory diagnoses that have not been included in national databases, and of persons with suspected...

World Health Organization researchers issued a dire new forecast for the Ebola epidemic Tuesday, one that sees 20,000 cases by November, much sooner than previous estimates. And 70 percent of patients are dying. That's a big increase over the previous estimates of a 50 percent fatality rate. “These data indicate that without drastic improvements in control measures, the numbers of cases of and deaths from Ebola virus disease are expected to continue increasing from hundreds to thousands per week in the coming months,” the WHO Ebola Response Team, led by Dr. Christopher Dye, wrote in a report rushed into print...