Study: Ebola could strike 20,000 in six weeks, ‘rumble on for years’

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa could infect 20,000 people as soon as early November unless rigorous infection control measures are implemented, and might "rumble on" for years in a holding pattern, researchers said on Tuesday.

In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Imperial College said that infections will continue climbing exponentially unless patients are isolated, contacts traced and communities enlisted.

The WHO, in an initial roadmap issued on Aug. 28, predicted that the virus could strike 20,000 people within the next nine months. The current death toll is at least 2,811 out of 5,864 cases, according to United Nations figures.

The latest study, marking six months from March 23, when the WHO said it was informed of the Ebola outbreak in southeastern Guinea, reflects projections based on the data from a third wave of the virus in Guinea, Sierra Leone and worst-hit Liberia.

"With exponential growth, you'll see that the case numbers per week go up so that by the second of November, over these three countries our best estimate is over 20,000 cases, confirmed and suspected cases," Dr. Christopher Dye, director of strategy at the WHO, and co-author of article, said in a briefing.

Nearly 10,000 of those infected would be in Liberia, 5,000 in Sierra Leone and nearly 6,000 in Guinea, he said. But those numbers would only come about with no enhanced infection control.

"Everyone is certainly working very hard to make sure this is a not the reality that we will be seeing," Dye said. "I will be surprised if we hit 20,000 by then," said Dye.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week that under a $1 billion plan, he would create a special mission to combat the disease and deploy staff to the region.

"If control is completely successful in the way that we know it can be, then Ebola will disappear from the human population of West Africa and probably return to its animal reservoir," said Dye, noting that fruit bats were probably the source.

But if control efforts are only partly successful, Ebola viral disease in the human population could become "a permanent feature of life in West Africa,” Dye said.

"The alternative possibility that we're talking about is that the epidemic simply rumbles on as it has for the last few months for the next few years, on the order of years, rather than months," said Dye. "Under those circumstances, the fear is that Ebola will be more or less a permanent feature of the human population."

In the three hardest-hit countries there was a "mixed pattern," Dye said.

"We see for example in the border areas of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, some areas where there has been no increase in cases for some weeks now," he said. "So the question that arises is whether we're actually seeing the beginning of a stationary pattern in this epidemic."

In two badly affected districts of Sierra Leone, Kenema and Kailahun, close to border areas with Guinea and Liberia, there has been a stationary pattern, he said.

"What we've seen in the past weeks there, maybe eight, nine, 10 weeks now, is a pattern of incidence, numbers of cases per week, which has not significantly changed,” said Dye. "And indeed there are signs that it's going down.

There are other reassuring signs about the efficacy of infection control measures, he said, but whether the disease's spread was stabilizing would become clear in the next few weeks.

No new cases have been recorded in either Nigeria or Senegal in the last three weeks, corresponding to the 21-day incubation period for developing the virus, whose symptoms include fever, vomiting and diarrhea.

But the Liberian capital Monrovia, where the disease has recently spread fastest, was "uncharted territory," said Dye.

"Quite honestly if you ask 'can we stamp Ebola out of Liberia?' I'm not sure,” he said. “In principle we know how to do it, but can we do it on the ground? It remains to be seen."

Al Jazeera and Reuters