UN says Ebola death toll rising to 4,500 this week

A top official with the U.N. health agency says the death toll from the Ebola crisis will rise to more than 4,500 lives this week from among 9,000 people infected by the deadly disease.

Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, director of WHO's global capacities, alert and response, says the new numbers show the outbreak is hitting health workers hard, with 2,700 infected and 236 dead.

She told reporters in Geneva that cases are doubling every four weeks and the effects of the crisis are increasingly being felt beyond its epicenter in West Africa.

Nuttall said Ebola cases are growing in Guinea's capital of Conakry. But she said problems with data-gathering in Liberia, which has a significant under-reporting of Ebola cases in Monrovia, its capital, make it hard to draw any conclusions there.