In Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three countries most affected by the Ebola epidemic, a total of 5,335 people have been infected and 2,622 have died of hemorrhagic fever, the world organization has just announced. of health. Which makes it the largest and deadliest epidemic recorded since 1976, when the virus was discovered.
In one month, the number of people affected and dead doubled: the WHO count a month ago was 2,458 people infected and 1,346 deaths.
318 health workers were affected
Liberia accounts for more than half of the cases. It was also during a humanitarian mission in Liberia that a French woman working for Médecins sans frontières contracted the Ebola virus before being repatriated to France to be cared for.
The World Health Organization has said 318 health workers have been infected with the Ebola virus and 151 have died. The fragility of the health services, which are struggling to contain the disease in the three countries where it is most widespread, is fueling people’s fear and suspicion.
Last August, the WHO announced that it hoped to achieve control of the epidemic within 9 months and predicted 20,000 cases in total by that time. But a group of American scientists have made other more alarmist projections since. According to them, the epidemic is likely to last from 12 to 18 months and could infect hundreds of thousands of people before the Ebola virus is brought under control.
