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Ebola crisis the Guardian briefing
Sarah Boseley, health editor
The Ebola outbreak has killed about 5,000 people in west Africa, and affected the US
and Spain, where people returning from the region have died and transmitted the
infection to several nurses. We examine the background to the disease, its spread and
its impact
What’s the story?
West Africa is experiencing the biggest outbreak of the Ebola virus ever known,
causing thousands of deaths, devastating fragile healthcare systems and damaging the
economies of countries, some of which are still recovering from civil war. Infections
are thought to be doubling every few weeks. The WHO says there were 13,700
officially registered cases by the end of October, almost all in Sierra Leone, Liberia
and Guinea, with about 5,000 deaths, but many go unrecorded and the true figure is
thought to be two to three times higher. The US Centres for Disease Control (CDC)
says that if nothing changes there could be 1.4 million cases by late January. Liberia
has shown a slight drop in the numbers, but the WHO has warned this could be
temporary. Concerns for countries bordering the epidemic region intensified when a
child died of Ebola in Mali, having travelled while sick for hundreds of miles by bus.
Outside Africa, two nurses were infected while caring for a patient in Texas who flew
from Liberia before exhibiting symptoms, as was a nurse who treated a missionary
repatriated to Madrid . The patients died but the nurses recovered. A doctor returning
to New York from Liberia also fell sick and triggered new 21-day quarantine
restrictions in some states.
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From: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/-sp-ebola-crisis-briefing