Failure marks another setback in efforts to curb deadly disease

Two months ago, the World Health Organization launched an ambitious plan to stop the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, aiming to isolate 70 percent of the sick and safely bury 70 percent of the victims in the three hardest-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - by Monday.

Only Guinea was on track to meet the goal, according to an update from WHO.

In Liberia, only 23 percent of cases are isolated and 26 percent of the needed burial teams are in place. In Sierra Leone, about 40 percent of cases are isolated while 27 percent of burial teams are operational.

With the target date falling on Monday, WHO's goals almost certainly were missed, marking another failure in attempts to slow the biggest outbreak of the deadly disease. The Ebola outbreak was first reported in Guinea in March and spiraled out of control after being declared a public health emergency in August.

The WHO's Dr Bruce Aylward acknowledged in October that to reach the Dec 1 goal would be "really pushing the system hard".

"If we don't do it in 60 days and we take 90 days: No 1, a lot more people will die that shouldn't; and No 2, we will need that much more capacity on the ground to be able to manage the caseload," said Aylward, who is directing the WHO's Ebola response.

In recent weeks, there have been some successes in curbing Ebola; cases seem to be declining or stabilizing in Liberia and Guinea. But the area around Sierra Leone's capital and a district in the country's north are seeing a severe surge in cases.

The Dec 1 targets had been met in many places - but not all, which was the goal, said Anthony Banbury, who is heading the UN's Ebola response.

"There are still going to be many people who catch the disease and many people who die from it," Banbury said.

Even if the Dec 1 targets had been reached, WHO and others had predicted Ebola would continue sickening people in West Africa and possibly elsewhere until sometime next year. Ebola has sickened more than 16,000 people, of whom nearly 7,000 have died, according to figures released by the WHO on Friday.

Failing to reach the Dec 1 target now suggests Ebola will spread even further as capacities to respond become even more stretched, according to Oyewale Tomori, of Redeemer's University in Nigeria, who sits on WHO's Emergency Ebola committee.

"We need to redouble our efforts to see what we can do to reduce the spread and catch up with the virus," he said. "Right now, it doesn't look good."

Other experts said the WHO goals were never very significant.

"You want to isolate 100 percent of patients with Ebola and have 100 percent safe burials," said Sebastian Funk, director of the Center for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Getting to 70 percent doesn't really mean a lot."

The ultimate goal of WHO's plan is to isolate all Ebola patients and provide safe burials for all by Jan 1.

"We hope that what we're seeing in Liberia will continue, but unfortunately what can happen with Ebola is that it can go to new countries, as it has already to Mali," warned Dr David Heymann, an Ebola expert who previously worked for the WHO.