In
confirming what health officials and news organizations had reported
for weeks, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the C.D.C. director, said that a
previous worse-case projection by the agency that the Ebola
epidemic could lead to 1.4 million cases by late January unless
effective measures were taken to contain it was no longer applicable,
crediting what he called “good progress” in Liberia.
“There’s
been a substantial change in the trend,” Dr. Frieden said during a
conference call with reporters. “There is no longer exponential
increase, and in fact, there’s been a decrease” in the rate of
infections in Liberia.
Health officials are less certain of the rate of infections in Guinea, another of the three most affected countries. Dr. Frieden said that in the third country, Sierra Leone,
“both their epidemic and their response are several weeks behind
Liberia.” He added that he hoped an increase in international aid to
Sierra Leone, particularly from Britain, would help bring down the
numbers there as well.
Graphic: Ebola Facts: How Has the Food Supply Been Affected by the Outbreak?
His
comments came a day after the Pentagon said it was scaling back the
size and number of Ebola treatment facilities that American troops are
building in Liberia. Defense officials said that instead of building 17
units, as promised by President Obama, the military would build 10
treatment facilities, and that seven of them would have 50 beds each,
rather than the 100 beds previously planned.
In
addition, two other units that were to have been built by American
troops will be built instead by an international aid group,
administration officials said. Defense officials also said they were
scaling back the number of American military personnel responding to the
epidemic in West Africa, to 3,000 from 4,000.
Still,
American defense and health officials cautioned that Ebola remained a
significant health crisis in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and
warned against letting up in the international aid effort th
More Ebola Coverage
“There
have been big changes in community behavior,” Dr. Frieden said. But he
added that there were still, by some estimates, 1,000 to 2,000 new Ebola
cases a week — the bulk of those now in Guinea and Sierra Leone. He
said the effort to combat Ebola would continue to require “a massive
undertaking” to chase each case, including finding people who have had
contact with the virus.
The World Health Organization’s
latest update on Ebola, posted Wednesday on its website, said the
number of confirmed, probable and suspected cases totaled 15,145, with
5,420 reported deaths, as of Sunday. Nearly all were in Guinea, Liberia
and Sierra Leone, with two deaths in the United States.
Though
reported cases no longer appear to be increasing in Liberia or Guinea,
the update said, “transmission remains intense and widespread in Sierra
Leone,” with Freetown, the capital, remaining the worst-affected area.
The
update also said that at least 584 health care workers, who are among
those most at risk of contracting the disease, had been infected, and
that 329 had died.
Cuban
health officials reported Tuesday that a Cuban doctor, one of the 165
medical workers sent by Cuba to help battle the Ebola outbreak, had
become the first in that group to be infected. The doctor, identified as
Felix Baez, had been treating patients in Sierra Leone and was flown to
Switzerland for treatment.
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