Ebola death toll in West Africa over 3,000: WHO

As the Ebola outbreak in West Africa induces panic all over the world, the toll from the deadly virus has hit 3,000 till now, according to latest figures released by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Zee News reported with agency inputs.

The report said, nearly 6,300 people in Wet Africa are believed to be infected with the virus.

The UN Security Council has meanwhile,  declared the Ebola outbreak as 'a threat to international peace and security'. Also, US president Barack Obama had committed to deploy 3,000 US troops terming Ebola as a global threat calling for an international response.

According to a new study, the number of infected cases could reach 20,000 by the beginning of November if efforts to contain the outbreak were not accelerated.

The latest WHO numbers, as of 21 September are:

In Guinea, where the outbreak started late last year, as of 21 September, 1,022 people had been infected, leaving 635 dead.

In Liberia, which was hit the hardest by the outbreak, 3,280 people had been infected with Ebola, more than half in the preceding three weeks, and 1,677 of them had died.

In Sierra Leone, Ebola had killed 593, of the  1,940 people infected, with the three weeks since 1 September accounting for 38 per cent of total infections.
Meanwhile, Independent.ie reported that while stories of victims bleeding out and dying or those detailing the ease with which the virus could be contracted continued to fascinate and horrify in equal measure, it was the 'collateral damage' from Ebola that was likely to kill far more people.

As health systems collapse under the impact of the outbreak that had killed nurses and doctors, deaths from infectious diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia would be expected to soar in the countries as many were too afraid to seek help for any ailment.

The reports cites the developments at Kenema Government Hospital in the eastern part of Sierra Leone, where the first case of Ebola was confirmed in May.

The authorities chose Kenema Hospital as the country's main treatment centre, in the belief that the necessary expertise was available, as it had previously dealt with an outbreak of the not-dissimilar Lassa fever.

Four months later, at least 30 of the hospital's medical staff had died from Ebola and the around 60 Ebola patients housed in the hospital were not being properly looked after because the dead staff had not been replaced - and many others had quit.

The hospital's other wards - which at one time housed malaria, pneumonia, or cancer patients, among others - had been abandoned, as even the ill did not want to be in the vicinity due to the lack of sufficient medical staff there to treat them