The
death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak on record has reached nearly
7,000 in West Africa, the World Health Organisation said on Saturday.
The
UN health agency did not provide any explanation for the abrupt
increase, but the figures, published on its website, appeared to include
previously unreported deaths.
A WHO spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Just
over 16,000 people have been diagnosed with Ebola since the outbreak
was confirmed in the forests of remote southeastern Guinea in March,
according to the WHO data that covered the three hardest-hit countries.
Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia have accounted for all but 15 of the deaths in
the outbreak, which has touched five other countries, according to the
previous WHO figures.
In
a separate development, Sierra Leone will soon see a dramatic increase
in desperately-needed treatment beds, but it’s not clear who will staff
them, a top UN official in the fight against the disease has said.
Sierra
Leone is now bearing the brunt of the 8-month-old outbreak. In
the other hard-hit countries, Liberia and Guinea, WHO says infection
rates are stabilising or declining, but in Sierra Leone, they’re
soaring. The country has been reporting around 400 to 500 new cases each
week for several weeks.
Those
cases are concentrated in the capital, Freetown, its surrounding areas
and the northern Port Loko district, which together account for about 65
percent of the country’s new infections, Anthony Banbury, head of the
UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, said in an interview with
the Associated Press news agency
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