Sunday, September 14, 2014

Virologist: Up to Five Million People Could Die From Ebola

D-W has extensively edited the following story to the point the current version has no estimate of the number of possible deaths.
The editing has been done without explanation.
Here is the current version:
Ebola threatens to destroy Sierra Leone and Liberia

And here is:
Virologist: Fight against Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia is lost
From Deutsche Welle, September 11, via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:
The killer virus is spreading like wildfire, Liberia's defense minister said on Tuesday and pleaded help from the UN. Now a German Ebola expert goes one step further and comes up with a shocking assertion.
His statement might alarm many people.

But Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg told DW that he and his colleagues are losing hope for Sierra Leone and Liberia, two of the countries worst hit by the recent Ebola epidemic.

"The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed," he said. That time was May and June. "Now it is too late."
Schmidt-Chanasit expects the virus will "burn out itself" in this part of the world.

With other words: It will more or less infect everybody and half of the population - in total about five million people - could die.

Stop the virus from spilling over to other countries
Schmidt-Chanasit knows that it is a hard thing to say.
He stresses that he doesn't want international help to stop. Quite the contrary: He demands "massive help".
For Sierra Leone and Liberia, though, he thinks "it is far from reality to bring enough help there to get a grip on the epidemic."

According to the virologist, the most important thing to do now is to prevent the virus from spreading to other countries, "and to help where it is still possible, in Nigeria and Senegal for example."

Moreover, much more money has to be put into evaluating suitable vaccines, he added....MORE
...Angry reactions
In the headquarters of Welthungerhilfe, a German non-governmental aid organization that is engaged in helping with the Ebola epidemic, Schmidt-Chanasit's statement causes much contempt.
Such declarations "are not very constructive," a spokeswoman said.

Jochen Moninger, Sierra Leone based coordinator of Welthungerhilfe, told DW, Schmidt-Chanasit's statement is "dangerous and moreover, not correct."...
See also Wired Sept. 14, 2014:
The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It
The Arizona Republic, Sept. 13:
ASU professor: Ebola spreading rapidly through West Africa
CNN Sept. 12 
Ebola in the air? A nightmare that could happen
Econometrics by Simulation Sept. 5
1.2 Millions Deaths by Ebola projected within Six Months?