WHO: Guinea’s Ebola outbreak approaching deadliest ever

More than 200 people have died from the highly contagious Ebola virus in Guinea, marking one of the worst-ever outbreaks of the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Wednesday.

The U.N.'s health agency said it had so far registered 328 confirmed or suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, including 208 deaths, with 21 deaths registered between May 29 and June 1 alone.

Neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia were also affected, said the WHO, which has described West Africa's first outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever as one of the most challenging since the virus was first identified in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. An estimated 280 people died in that outbreak, the deadliest on record.

But the widespread geography of the current outbreak has sparked fears that an Ebola epidemic could be on the horizon, a prospect that has caused panic across a region with weak health care systems and porous borders.

To date, 79 confirmed and suspected cases have surfaced in Sierra Leone, which has seen its death toll from the disease jump from one a week ago to six. The virus meanwhile appeared to have resurfaced in Liberia, which earlier this year had seen 12 suspected and confirmed cases, including nine deaths, but had not seen any new cases for nearly two months.

A person believed to have been infected in Kailahun in Sierra Leone came across the border and died in Foya, the WHO said, pointing out that the dead body was taken back to Kailahun to be buried.

There is no known cure for Ebola, which kills up to 90 percent of those who contract the virus.

Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse