Death toll keeps climbing as world leaders demand action

The death toll in the West African Ebola outbreak has surpassed 3,300 and some government and international health agencies are now admitted that the virus is spreading exponentially across Africa, and may cause 1.4 million people to become infected by January of 2015.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Diplomats and officials from organizations and 20 different nations have pledged a further $126 million to help fight and contain the Ebola outbreak.

Help combat infectious disease, protect children and the poor.

A group of 35 European security officials from the European Leadership Network issued a declaration that said the Ebola outbreak needs to be treated like the threat posed by nuclear weapons. They stated that this Ebola outbreak has outstripped "the ability of health care systems and workers to respond" and needed massive international effort to bring it under control.

"We need urgently to elevate international cooperation on this challenge and other public health issues to European and global head-of-state-level," the statement said. "This has been done in recent years on issues like the security of weapons using nuclear materials and it should be the response triggered now by the Ebola crisis."

Justine Greening, the U.K.'s International Development Secretary, spoke during a conference aimed to coordinate the global response in London. She said that actually figuring out how far the disease had spread has been challenging, but if immediate action is not taken, it could be nearly impossible to stop Ebola.

"What we do know is that if we fail to take action to tackle Ebola, it will allow this disease - which has already proved itself fatal to so many people - to spread unchecked," she said.

"We should also be clear that this disease and the numbers of people infected will get worse before it gets better. This is about bearing down on the rate of transmission that we're currently seeing so we can bring that down, get it under control and. start to eradicate Ebola."

Greening said that the 1.4 million prediction from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention really shows the need for whole and rapid action.

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'