One hundred twenty-one people died of Ebola on Saturday in Sierra Leone in what is considered the single deadliest day since the country recorded its first case about four months ago.

The World Health Organization reported last week that the outbreak remains persistent despite efforts to curtail its exponential spread.

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On Sunday, Sierra Leone's Emergency Operations Centre pegged the total number of deaths at 678 in addition to 81 new cases recorded. Just last week, the Save the Children international charity foundation reported that five people get infected with the deadly hemorrhagic disease every hour.

The group projected that if measures were not stepped up, ten people will be infected with Ebola virus every hour by the end of October. It also warned that the disease is spreading at a terrifying rate and that medical facilities could hardly cope with the exponential growth of cases.

About 765 new Ebola cases were reported in Sierra Leone last week alone, said the organization, while the country only has the capacity to accommodate about only half of the cases. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was first recorded in Guinea in March and has since spread to adjoining countries.

As of October 1, the epidemic has claimed 3,439 lives out of the 7,492 people infected in the region, while more deaths are feared to have been unreported since children die anonymously in the streets or at their homes every day, said Save the Children.

If estimates by the United States Centers for Disease Control were correct, 1.4 million people will be infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia by the end of the year. Among them, only 30 percent are likely to survive.

Dr. Amara Jambai of Sierra Leone’s health ministry told The New York Times last week that his country lacks sufficient facilities and personnel to respond to the devastating spread of the Ebola epidemic.

The newspaper reported that international aid barely reaches far-flung regions. Meanwhile, the dying, the gravely ill and the dead are placed among suspected patients of Ebola in holding centers that have neither treatment facilities nor laboratories for testing.

TagsEbola outbreak, Sierra Leone, Death Toll, West Africa, WHO