An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa has gone "totally out of control," a senior executive with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders says.
The international aid group is stretched to the absolute limit of its ability to mount a response to the ravaging disease, director of operations Bart Janssens said.
The virus, and its resultant deadly variety of hemorrhagic fever, has resulted in the deaths of more than 300 of around 500 people infected in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the group said.
The death toll makes the current Ebola outbreak the largest and most deadly since its initial identification in 1976 in Congo when 280 deaths were reported. An outbreak in Uganda infected 425 people, of whom 224 died.
"The reality is clear that the epidemic is now in a second wave," Janssens said. "And, for me, it is totally out of control."
There is no cure nor even an effective treatment for the highly transmissible disease, experts said. There also is no vaccine.
The current outbreak began in Guinea.
"I'm absolutely convinced that this epidemic is far from over and will continue to kill a considerable amount of people, so this will definitely end up the biggest ever," Janssens said.
While Doctors Without Borders has some 40 people working in the outbreak areas and has set up a number of treatment centers, it has reached the limit of what it can do in response, he said.
It has run out of people with experience in such outbreaks in its network that can be called on, he added, meaning it may not have people to staff a center in Liberia as it has already done in Sierra Leone and Guinea.
The current outbreak is presenting particular challenges because it started in a region where people are extremely mobile, moving across the three countries' very fluid borders.
That has cased the outbreak to quickly move from rural areas to urban centers, including the capital cities of both Liberia and Guinea.
Unlike previous outbreaks which struck sparsely populated regions in eastern and central Africa, which helped hold down its ability to spread, the current epidemic's epicenter is close to a major transport hub for the region, the city of Gueckedou in Guinea.
The disease will continue to spread unless people can be convinced to present themselves for treatment as soon as symptoms appear and be persuaded to refrain from touching ill people or those who have died of Ebola. Strict infection control procedures need to be followed.
"There is still not a real change of behavior of the people," Jansenns said. "So a lot of sick people still remain in hiding or continue to travel. And there is still news that burial practices are remaining dangerous."
Those burial practices refer to family members washing and preparing the body of a dead family memebr for burial, a move which exposes them to fluids which transmit the disease.
