Between 550,000 and 1.4 million patients affected by Ebola fever in January 2015: these are the latest forecasts from the American Center for Disease Research (CDC). The high range (1.4 million cases) implies that the number of cases recorded so far (5,864 according to the latest estimates from the World Health Organization) would be significantly underestimated. It is indeed likely, according to US health authorities, that 2.5 times more people have already been affected by the disease.
The CDC points out that the predictions are based on the potential number of people each patient is likely to infect. They do not take into account the possible decline in the disease that could occur following the arrival in West Africa of 3,000 members of the armed forces, who have come as reinforcements to help the medical teams.
The mistakes that were made
Faced with this pessimistic outlook, experts wonder how the hemorrhagic fever epidemic could suddenly explode. They think that three mistakes were probably made.
– The response from the health authorities was too slow. Last April, everyone believed that the epidemic was under control. But the virus had not said its last word. And instead of being confined to Guinean territory, it also spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia, faster than any fever outbreak had ever done before. However, this did not seem to worry the health authorities, who did not immediately realize that they were being overwhelmed by the avalanche of cases. It was necessary to wait 1000 additional deaths so that the alert is sounded and a humanitarian response is finally put in place.
– No “international anti-epidemic health force” is really planned for this kind of health disaster. As proof, these are soldiers who have just been sent as reinforcements to Liberia to help the nursing teams at the end of their tether, and themselves. decimated by the virus.
– We underestimated the volume of drugs needed. ZMapp, the experimental drug to treat Ebola virus is produced from tobacco plants in a small pharmaceutical company employing 9 people. The medicine is out of stock and we have to wait for the next tobacco harvest to launch a new production. Fortunately, other chemical treatments as well as vaccines are being tested, including a Japanese drug that Inserm will test in Guinea.