Ebola is spreading so rapidly it could become a global pandemic to rival AIDS, the U.S. government's top health officials has warned.
"In the 30 years I’ve been working public health, the only thing like this has been AIDS, and we have to work now so that this is not the world’s next AIDS," said Tom Frieden, M.D., director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
ABC News reports.
Dr. Frieden’s comments came during a conference at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., that included a group of African leaders from countries where the virus has spread.
"Speed is the most important variable here," Dr. Frieden said. "This is controllable and this was preventable. It's preventable by investing in core public health services, both in the epicenter of the most affected countries, in the surrounding countries, and in other countries that might be affected."
The World Health Organization released a report on Wednesday that noted six countries — five in West Africa and the United States — that had been affected. According to the WHO report, there had been 3,865 deaths as of Oct. 5 out of 8,033 confirmed cases. Those figures represent a 48 percent fatality rate.
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