Ebola easier to stop now than later - Rosling's Factpod #6

Help must come within weeks, or Ebola will require unimaginable resources.
Data sources: http://nej.md/1wS4zeN & http://reliefweb.int/disaster/ep-2014-000041-gin

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I am professor Hans Rosling,

and I follow day by day

the informations about
the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The epidemic is getting
worse, especially in Liberia.

This graph shows

the number of newly infected persons

per week in Liberia.

Here, it shows
the number of persons infected;

here, of the weeks, from the end of July

until beginning of September.

And you can see,

that the number infected

kept increasing and increasing
all the time.

The doctors and health staff

and the Government in Liberia

did their best, together
with the international support

but the treatments have today.

Patients die in the streets,

or they die at home,

buried without protection.

So more and more are getting infected.

And the specialists have now done
a prediction for the future;

each patient here infects
on average 1,7 other persons.

And that means that just more
and more and more will be infected.

So the epidemic, with present efforts,

will continue like this.

And this is the uncertainty range;

this means that it is possible

that it will go
almost straight up like this.

But this epidemic can be stopped

if just enough hospitals,
temporary hospitals,

with enough beds, are put in place,

so that all patients

with suspected or proven Ebola

can get the best treatment possible

and that they can be treated in a way

so they don't infect other,

and that those who tragically die

are buried without infecting others.

But it must be put in place now,

otherwise it will continue like this!

And then, so much
more effort will be needed.

The sooner the help will come,

the less resources are needed.