(Image source from: Ebola epidemic to tighten its grip in the coming months})

There seems to be no respite from the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic epidemic that is sweeping the West African countries yet. U.S. scientists fear that the fatal virus would continue to plague the African countries for another 12-18 months and could infect thousand others before a cure is found for it.

“We hope we’re wrong,” said Bryan Lewis, an epidemiologist at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech.

While the research facility said that it's working to control the epidemic, by the time they will succeed, the number of cases will exceed the estimates provided by WHO that estimated 20,000 cases in nine months.

However, researchers at various universities deem that given the virus’s present rate of growth, there could easily be close to 20,000 cases in one month and not in nine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however, has declined to comment on the projections. A C.D.C. director, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, has warned repeatedly that the epidemic is worsening, and on Sept. 2 described it as “spiraling out of control.”

While the initial outbreaks were mostly confined to rural areas, the current epidemic, which is the largest ever, has been transcending to densely populated, impoverished cities — including Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. This has gravely complicated all efforts to control epidemic. 

Alessandro Vespignani, a professor of computational sciences at Northeastern University said that if the case count reaches hundreds of thousands, “there will be little we can do.”

AW: Suchorita Choudhury