Ebola Death Toll Rises to More Than 4,000 - WHO

Oct 10, 2014 08:00 PM EDT

(Photo : Reuters) Volunteers lower a corpse, which is prepared with safe burial practices to ensure it does not pose a health risk to others and stop the chain of person-to-person transmission of Ebola, into a grave in Kailahun.

Over 4,000 people have died because of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the World Health Organization announced Friday.

The U.N. agency said there are now 4,033 confirmed Ebola-related deaths that have been recorded since the outbreak began.

All of the deaths were reported to have been from Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, except for nine, which were from other countries.

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Nigeria reported eight deaths, suspected to have been caused by Ebola, while one was from the United States.

As of Wednesday, the WHO said there are a total of 8,399 people who were infected by the deadly virus in seven countries.

The WHO have split the seven affected countries into two groups. First are the "worst-affected countries," which included Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The second group are those countries with a small number of isolated cases, which included the United States, Spain, Senegal and Nigeria.

The country that is worst-hit by the outbreak is Liberia, which accounted for 2,316 of the total deaths and has 4,076 cases, followed by Sierra Leone, with 930 deaths and 2,950 infected people.

778 deaths were from Guinea, where the outbreak began, and which has seen 1,350 cases.

Meanwhile, medical volunteers have also suffered from the virus, with a reported number of 233 deaths abd 416 cases across the three countries.

Nigeria, with eight reported deaths out of the 20 cases, have now declared that it is Ebola-free.

The Unite States has one Ebola-related death, while Spain and Senegal have one case each.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo is also hit by Ebola, but according to the WHO, it is a different strain of the virus, compared to the one in West Africa. And as of Oct 7, it has left 43 people dead and 71 others infected in the country.

On Friday, United Nations Ebola envoy David Nabarro, said the number of people infected by the virus was doubling "every three to four weeks" and efforts to contain it must be 20 times as much as it was in the beginning of the month.

Nabarro said that without strong efforts to support the affected countries, "the world will have to live with Ebola forever."

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