Ebola Outbreak Threatens To Wipe Out 3 African Nations As Virus Now Has 70% Death Rate

As Ebola continues to ravage West Africa, three states are threatening to "collapse." According to a minister of Liberia in a report by The Independent, the international media did not "appreciate" the epidemic enough to know that the Ebola outbreak is no longer just a health crisis. Information minister Lewis Brown said the virus is threatening every aspect of the state's "existence."

Referring to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, Brown reiterated that people need to understand the threat that's about to cause the collapse of three countries. He said that Liberia has enjoyed 11 years of peace as it rebuilt its economy and health infrastructure. The Liberian minister said hope has just come back to his country when it was struck by Ebola.

He said only 40 percent of Liberia's healthcare facilities were operational while schools remained closed. The agricultural regions wasted an entire farming season in the north-east areas of the country since they were among the first to record the early cases of Ebola.

In Sierra Leone, millions of people have emerged from their homes on Sept. 22 after a controversial lockdown in the country. During the lockdown period, several dead bodies and about 150 new cases of Ebola were discovered.

Reports said Sierra Leone had ordered six million people to stay inside their homes for 72 hours in an attempt to control the deadly outbreak that killed 2,800 people in West Africa. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, emergency operations head Steven Gaojia said Sierra Leone has an "overflow" of dead bodies that need to be buried after the lockdown. He said the overflow has been a daily occurrence since the Ebola outbreak began.

The World Health Organisation has warned weeks before that Liberia will see a rapid increase in the number of people infected with Ebola, with thousands predicted to contract the virus. The international health agency recently declared that the virus has a death rate of 70 percent now from the previous 50 percent estimate.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a report by the WHO Ebola Response Team with Dr Christopher Dye as the head. He said recent data indicates the number of deaths and cases will continue to rise without drastic measures. The United Nations has recently announced that Liberia has recorded 3,022 total cases of Ebola with 1,578 deaths.