The World Health Organization (WHO) said thousands of new Ebola cases are expected in the coming weeks as the virus spreads rapidly in Liberia.

On Monday, WHO said the “transmission of the Ebola virus in Liberai is already intense and new cases is increasing exponentially”. The growing number of new cases outstripped the Ebola treatment centers’ capacity to respond, the organization added.

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According to reports, 14 out of 15 counties in Liberia, the country hardest hit by the epidemic, have reported confirmed cases. WHO noted that Ebola patients quickly filled newly opened Ebola treatment facilities in the region.

"As soon as a new Ebola treatment facility is opened, it immediately overflows with patients, pointing to a large but previously invisible caseload”, WHO said in a statement.

Based on WHO's update last Friday, 1,089 people have died out of 1,871 cases in Liberia, the highest national toll on record.

WHO believes it will take six to nine months to contain the Ebola disease and it may infect up to 20,000 people in West Africa.

So far, over 3,500 people were infected by the disease and nearly half of them were in Liberia. The deadly epidemic also spreads in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal that killed around 2,100 people, reports said.

According to a WHO investigative team, about 1,000 beds are urgently needed for Ebola patients in Montserrado County, which includes Monrovia, Liberia’s capital.

Some reports said that motorbike-taxis and regular taxis have become "a hot source" of potential Ebola transmission. In Monrovia, taxis filled with an infected family members were searching for a treatment bed. Unfortunately, there are no available treatment beds for them.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called its partners to urge more support to scale up efforts against Ebola by three- to fourfold in Liberia and elsewhere in West African countries to battle the epidemic.

TagsWHO, West Africa, Virus, UN