Mortality rate climbing: Ebola virologist warns outbreak could lead to “the complete breakdown of society” - Los Angeles Times

Nurses disinfect the body of a suspected Ebola victim outside an Ebola treatment center in Monrovia, Liberia. (Ahmed Jallanzo / European Pressphoto Agency)

By Monte Morin In a grim assessment of the Ebola epidemic, researchers say the deadly virus threatens to become endemic to West Africa instead of eventually disappearing from humans.
"The current epidemiologic outlook is bleak," wrote a panel of more than 60 World Health Organization experts in a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
"We must therefore face the possibility that Ebola virus disease will become endemic among the human population of West Africa, a prospect that has never previously been contemplated."
In the absence of new control measures, the authors estimated that the total case load would exceed 20,000 by Nov 2...Continue reading...