MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - There is hope for the Ebola outbreak to be brought under control within three months because of greater community awareness on isolating infected people according to the UN special envoy on Ebola, David Nabarro, the BBC reported Sunday.
"I think we've got much better community involvement [now] which leads me to believe that getting it under control within the next three months is a reasonable target," Nabarro told BBC.
"By under control I mean the numbers of new cases each week diminishes compared with the previous week to the point where there is no new transmission," he added.
Despite the confidence expressed by officials, there is concern about the virus becoming a global pandemic.
On Saturday, the condition of a Spanish nurse, who contracted the virus while attending to a Spanish priest flown from West Africa for treatment in Madrid, was reported to be improving.
But the number of reported cases is on the rise with new possible infection coming from Australia, Turkey, Brazil and France, the Liberty Voice newspaper reported on Friday.
According to the newspaper, a nurse, Sue-Ellen Kovack, who returned from volunteering in Africa, developed Ebola-like symptoms and was hospitalized in Australia while health officials from Germany confirmed three cases of infection on Thursday.
So far, there are at least 4,033 recorded deaths and over 8,300 people confirmed or suspected to have contracted the virus, according to the latest WHO records.
The outbreak which begun in West Africa in March became widespread in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea which account for 4,024 of the recorded deaths.
Meanwhile, New York's JFK airport began screening passengers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea for the Ebola virus on Saturday, following the death of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to die from Ebola in the United States (in Texas) on Wednesday.
