Sept. 23, 2014 (Bloomberg) -- Without better containment of the Ebola outbreak, there may be 550,000 to 1.4 million cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone by January, according to a new estimate published today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The range is based on how well cases have been reported and identified, the Atlanta-based CDC said. It also assumes a failure of public health efforts and a lack of additional resources to control the outbreak, aspects governments and international aid agencies are working to improve.
“The findings in this report underscore the substantial public health challenges posed by the predicted number of future Ebola cases,” the CDC researchers wrote in the estimate. “If conditions continue without scale-up of interventions, cases will continue to double approximately every 20 days, and the number of cases in West Africa will rapidly reach extraordinary levels.”