The death toll from the world's worst ever Ebola outbreak in West Africa has risen to 603 since February, with at least 68 deaths reported from three countries in the region in the last week alone, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
WHO said there were 85 new cases between July 8-12, highlighting continued high levels of transmission. International and local medics were struggling to get access to communities as many people feared outsiders were spreading rather than fighting Ebola.
"It's very difficult for us to get into communities where there is hostility to outsiders," WHO spokesman Dan Epstein told a news briefing in Geneva. "We still face rumors, and suspicion and hostility ... People are isolated, they're afraid, they're scared."
Sierra Leone recorded the highest number of deaths, which include confirmed, probable and suspect cases of Ebola, with 52. Liberia reported 13 and Guinea 3, according to the WHO figures.
Epstein said the main focus in the three countries is tracing people who have been exposed to others with Ebola and monitoring them for the 21-day incubation period to see if they were infected.
"It's probably going to be several months before we are able to get a grip on this epidemic," Epstein added.
Ebola causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea and was first detected in then Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo, in the mid-1970s. Spread through contact with blood and body fluids of infected people or animals, it is one of the world's deadliest viruses, killing up to 90 percent of those infected.
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