Inside STAT: Ebola outbreak threatens to escalate as violence rises

DOCTORS AND HEALTH WORKERS MARCHED AFTER ATTACKERS SHOT AND KILLED AN EPIDEMIOLOGIST FROM CAMEROON WHO WAS WORKING FOR THE WHO. (AL-HADJI KUDRA MALIRO/AP)

There’s a consensus among a number of experts involved with or closely monitoring the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo amid the ongoing violence aimed at the health workers — a disaster is on the horizon. The statistics are already grim, as daily increases in the number of cases are steadily in the double digits. The situation is made worse given the violent response to teams trying to curb the spread of disease: Ebola treatment centers have been burned down, response workers have faced physical violence, and one Cameroonian epidemiologist with the WHO was shot and killed. “The failure to contain the epidemic is raising fears of catastrophe,” STAT’s Helen Branswell writes. Read the full story here.