Ebola Outbreak 2014 Latest News: Could Lead to Chaos, Collapse of Nations – Experts

Drawing a worst-case scenario, experts have warned that the Ebola outbreak could lead to widespread chaos in West Africa, leading to the collapse of entire nations which will then become a "reservoir" for the spread of the deadly virus to the rest of Africa and eventually the entire world.

According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), the devastating and deadly disease is unravelling years of effort to stabilize West Africa. "The worst-hit countries now face widespread chaos and, potentially, collapse," the think tank said.

Once this happens, two British experts said Ebola could become endemic in West Africa which could then serve as the center for the spread of the virus worldwide.

The epidemic "seems out of control and has evolved into a major humanitarian crisis," said Professor Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust, concurred with the view as expressed in the New England Journal. In West Africa "there is a very real danger of a complete breakdown in civic society" and communities have lost faith in authority, he said.

The recent Ebola outbreak, the world's largest, has already led to the death of 2,811 people mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Signs of chaos have already appeared. Last week, an eight-member team trying to raise awareness about Ebola was attacked and killed by villagers in Guinea who taught they were the ones trying to spread the disease.

On Sept. 23, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Ebola infections could rise to 20,000 by November this year.

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) projected on Sept. 23that in the worst scenario, if the spread of Ebola goes unchecked, there could be 1.4 million cases by late January 2015.

In a statement, the ICG noted that two of the countries being ravaged by Ebola – Liberia and Sierra Leone -- are still recovering from brutal civil wars while another country, Guinea, has faced coups and ethnic unrest.

"Adding social breakdown to the epidemic would create disaster perhaps impossible to manage," the ICG said.

According to Afri-Dev.Info, Liberia, with a 4.2-million population, only has 51 doctors, 978 nurses and midwives, and 269 pharmacists. Sierra Leone, with a population of six million, only has 136 doctors, 1,017 nurses and midwives, and 114 pharmacists.

Meanwhile, new figures suggest that 70 percent of those infected with Ebola in West Africa have died, higher than previously reported. An analysis of the first nine months of the outbreak in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that the death rate is 70 percent, not 50 percent as previously estimated, when deaths outside hospitals are counted.

Many people are too frightened to go to hospital and the number of infections is doubling every few weeks, the report said.

Experimental drugs are being rushed to West Africa. Trials of vaccines are already in their early stages, with healthy British volunteers taking part in safety tests in the UK.