The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Tuesday that in six weeks, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa could infect 20,000 people and might become a permanent condition if better control measures are not implemented.

WHO said that since the outbreak begun half a year ago in Guinea, 5,864 cases have already been recorded. Of these, seventy percent have died, bringing in a total death toll of 2,811 people.

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The outbreak becoming endemic to West Africa-spreading routinely like flu or malaria-is a new insight offered in the report published in the New England Journal of Medicine today by researchers from WHO and the Imperial College.

Dr. Christopher Rye, the WHO director of strategy and the leading author of the research, said that by November 2, the Ebola virus could infect as many as 10,000 people in Liberia, 6,000 in Guinea and 5,000 in Sierra Leone.

WHO officials see no decline in the exponential rise in the number of people getting sick with the Ebola virus. The researchers argued that if no massive containment response is set in place soon, the outbreak will continue with its exponential climb and may become impossible to control.

The latest study is based on the data gathered during the third wave of the virus outbreak in the worst-hit regions of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.

The Ebola virus has caused more than a dozen outbreaks in the past four decades, mostly in the remote areas of Central Africa. While some of the outbreaks have been severe, local response has curtailed its spread by systematically diagnosing and monitoring cases.

The present outbreak in West Africa had apparently begun much like the ones previously seen in Central Africa. Only, it took months before public officials in Guinea declared an outbreak and the virus has already spread.

Unless enhanced infection control procedures such as patient isolation and community enlistment are adapted, WHO officials fear that the Ebola epidemic may rumble on for the next few years, becoming a more or less permanent feature in West Africa.

TagsEbola outbreak, West Africa, Guinea, Sierra Leone