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The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has hit another grim milestone: The World Health Organization reports over 4,000 people have been killed by the virus during the current outbreak.
And health officials have been issuing increasingly dire warnings about the epidemic.
Centers for Disease Control Director Thomas Frieden said, "The only thing like this has been AIDS. And we have to work now to make sure this is not the next AIDS." (via WORLD BANK)
The virus has been rampaging across West Africa for months, and recent Ebola cases in the U.S. and Spain have heightened fears of an Ebola pandemic. So how's the world's response to the crisis coming along?
Countries and non-governmental organizations have pledged substantial sums of money to help fight the outbreak. The Guardian has a comprehensive breakdown of the pledges made so far, which include a $350 million commitment from the U.S., a $400 million finance package from the World Bank and $50 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Countries around the world are also sending people to help combat the virus — 100 U.S. Marines arrived in Liberia on Thursday, part of the Obama administration's pledge to send almost 4,000 troops into affected countries.
The U.K. has also promised to send 750 troops to West Africa, and countries like Germany, Cuba and China have sent or are sending medical workers to the region. (Video via Al Jazeera)
But so far, the recurring theme of the global response has been "too little, too late." The international community has been criticized harshly for failing to respond fast enough and allowing the epidemic to grow out of control.
And the disease won't be going away anytime soon. The Washington Post has a feature on Ebola's "reproduction number," the average number of people that each new Ebola patient will infect. To stop the spread of the virus, that reproduction number needs to be below one — and instead, one analyst told the Post, it's currently hovering between 1.5 and two.
West Africa has seen a total of 8,399 confirmed or suspected Ebola cases since the outbreak began, according to WHO. Four hundred sixteen of those victims are health care workers; 233 of those workers were killed by the disease.
Read more at newsy.com.
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