The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the death toll from the Ebola epidemic rose to 4,922 out of 10,141 known cases in eight countries through October 23.
The virus, which reached Mali through a two-year-old girl who died on Friday, now threatens Ivory Coast, having infected people virtually all along its borders with Guinea and Liberia.
Ivory Coast is the world?s biggest cocoa producer. The Ebola outbreak has hurt the economic growth that has been raising living standards in the region, Reuters reports.
The three worst-hit countries of West Africa ? Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone ? account for the bulk of the world?s worst Ebola outbreak, recording 4,912 deaths out of 10,114 cases, the WHO said in its update.
The overall figures include outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal, deemd by the WHO to be now over, as well as isolated cases in Spain, the United States and a single case in Mali.
But the true toll may be three times as much: by a factor of 1.5 in Guinea, 2 in Sierra Leone and 2.5 in Liberia, while the death rate is thought to be about 70 percent of all cases.
The WHO has said that many families are keeping infected people at home rather than putting them into isolation in treatment centres, some of which have refused patients due to a lack of beds and basic supplies.
Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.
The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50 per cent. Case fatality rates have varied from 25 per cent to 90 per cent in past outbreaks.
