WHO: 700 Ebola cases emerge in one week

From [HERE] In a sign that West Africa’s Ebola crisis is worsening, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that more than 700 new cases of the deadly virus were confirmed in the last week for which data is available.

The news was announced as citizens of Sierra Leone prepared for a three-day nationwide shutdown, during which the country's 6 million people will be confined to their homes while volunteers search house-to-house for Ebola victims in hiding and hand out soap in a desperate bid to slow the accelerating outbreak.

The number of people killed by the Ebola virus is now more than 2,600, an increase of roughly 200 from the last estimate, WHO said. Most of the deaths have been in Liberia, the hardest-hit of West African nations plagued by the virus.

The disease has also touched Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal and is believed to have sickened more than 5,300 people, WHO reported. Just under half of those cases were recorded in the last three weeks.

Of those afflicted by the virus, some 318 have been health care workers — about half of whom have died. [MORE]