Ebola infections appeared to be slowing in hard-hit Liberia, but
warned the crisis was far from over.
"It appears that the trend is real in Liberia and there may indeed be
a slowing" of the epidemic's spread there, WHO assistant
director-general Bruce Aylward told reporters in Geneva.
Data from a range of different sources, including from funeral
directors reporting fewer Ebola and other burials and from treatment
centres reporting lower Ebola patient admission rates, indicated a
"downward trend" across much of Liberia, he said.
Labs were also seeing a "plateauing or slight decline" in the number
of confirmed cases, he said.
Aylward added, though, that he was "terrified that the information
will be misinterpreted and that people will begin to think Ebola is
under control."
"That is like thinking your pet tiger is under control," he warned.
He said that a rapid scaling up of information to the community about
the deadly virus, contact tracing and implementation of safe burial
practices had likely contributed to the positive trend in Liberia.
WHO is set to publish the latest death toll from the Ebola outbreak
that has mainly been ravaging West Africa later Wednesday, with the
number of deaths expected to pass the 5,000 mark.
Aylward said that the number of cases had soared to more than 13,700 --
up from just over the 10,000 WH0 reported on Saturday -- but he
stressed that the hike was mainly due to previously unreported cases
being added to the statistics.
Almost all of those cases were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and of course
Liberia, which alone counted 6,535, he said.
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