Decline in Ebola cases in Liberia could be real trend, but epidemic far from over: WHO
DAKAR, SENEGAL — The rate of new Ebola infections in Liberia appears to be declining and could represent a genuine trend, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, but the epidemic is far from over.
The disease is still raging in parts of Sierra Leone and there is still a risk that the decline in Liberia won’t be sustained, Dr. Bruce Aylward, an assistant directorgeneral for WHO, warned reporters.
Several times in outbreak officials have thought the disease’s spread was slowing, only to surge again later. Officials have often blamed those false lulls on cases hidden because people were too afraid to seek treatment, wanted to bury their relatives themselves or simply weren't in contact with authorities.
But now there are some positive signs: There are empty beds in treatment centres in Liberia and the number of burials has declined.
There may be as much as a 25 per cent week-on-week reduction in cases in Liberia, Aylward said.
Throughout the Ebola outbreak, WHO has warned that its figures have been incomplete and the number of cases are likely vastly underreported. That is still a concern, Aylward said, but the trend nonetheless appears to be real.
“The epidemic (in Liberia) may be slowing down,” he said during a telephone press conference from Geneva. The slowdown could be attributable to a rapid increase in safe burials of Ebola victims, an uptick in the number of sick people being isolated and major public awareness campaigns on how to stop transmission.
So far, more than 13,700 people have been sickened in the outbreak, which has hit Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone hardest. More than 6,300 of those are in Liberia alone.
Aylward cautioned against reading too much into the decline, saying that any let-up in the response could allow the disease to surge again.
“Am I hopeful? I’m terrified the information will be misinterpreted and people would start to think, oh great, this is under control,” he said.
“That’s like saying your pet tiger is under control.”
Liberia’s Red Cross said Tuesday that teams collected 117 bodies last week from the county that includes Monrovia, down from the high of 315 per week in September, and the government reported last week that only about half of the available beds in treatment centres were occupied.