Ebola-22 Million People Could Be At Risk According To Study

Map detailing the spread of the virus

The deadly Ebola Virus Disease currently ravaging some West African countries could yet spread to 15 countries, thereby putting the lives of 22 Million people at risk according to a study carried out by scientists in Oxford, United Kingdom.

Oxford scientists have recently released a new map showing how the virus that has killed more than 2,000 people in various places could spread. The studies warn that people living in countries that could be home to animals harbouring the virus are more widespread than previously feared.

Ebola has a high mortality rate of up to 90%, and is thought to be carried by fruit bats or other wild animals and to cross to humans through blood meat, or the infected fluid.

According to Nick Golding, an Oxford University researcher who worked on the international mapping team, it found significantly more regions at risk from Ebola than previously feared.

“Up until now there hadn't been a huge amount of research, but there was one paper in which the at-risk area was much smaller,' he said in a telephone interview. 'It didn't predict, for example, the area in Guinea where this current outbreak first started.”

Previous Ebola epidemics have been in central Africa, and a current outbreak in Congo - separate from the one in West Africa - has infected around 30 people in recent weeks.