Ebola, since 1976

Ebola nurses at risk

With death toll inching towards the thousand mark, the current Ebola outbreak ravaging some West African countries, will go down in history as the worst ever.

It has already surpassed anything else in the  records, in terms of number of infections and even the geographical spread.

The worst Ebola outbreaks in history were the ones recorded in 1976 in Zaire ,now known as DR Congo, when it was first diagnosed and was named after a river in the country. Two hundred and eighty people died then out of 380 infected cases. It resurfaced  in the same country in  1995, killing 250 people. Like a plague that never goes away,12  years after, it came again in DR Congo, killing 187 people, out of 264 people infected.

The WHO announced today that the death toll in this year’s outbreak in West Africa   has risen to 932 after 45 patients died between August 2 and August 4. With the death of a nurse in Lagos, Nigeria and a Saudi national in Jeddah on 6 August, the number is now 934.

In battle gear for Ebola

WHO reported that the number of suspected, probable or confirmed cases rose by 108 over the same period to 1,711. Of the newly reported deaths, 27 were in Liberia, which has had 516 cases and 282 deaths from the disease since the outbreak began in February.

Guinea, where the outbreak was first reported, had 10 new cases and 5 deaths, while the number of cases in Sierra Leone rose by 45 to 691, with 13 newly reported deaths, bringing its death toll to 286.

In Nigeria, the fourth country to be affected, the number of suspected cases climbed from 4 to 9.

The WHO data only  included one death in Nigeria, of a man who collapsed shortly after he arrived by plane from Liberia, via Ghana and Togo.

But a nurse who treated him also died, Nigeria’s health minister said on Wednesday.

The WHO figures also did not contain any mention of Saudi Arabia, where a man died on Wednesday after returning from a business trip to Sierra Leone.

The WHO is holding an Emergency Committee meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to decide if the outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern and, if so, what to do about it.