(NaturalNews) Every 12 minutes, one additional person contracts Ebola in Sierra Leone, reveals newly published data. Five new people every hour are now coming down with the deadly viral disease, according to figures released by the UK charity group Save the Children, a shocking rate of infection that experts predict will double by the end of the month.

During the last week of September, there were 765 new cases of Ebola reported in Sierra Leone. At the beginning of September, Ebola was spreading there at a rate of about 500 new cases per week, representing an increase of 53 percent. And this is despite the fact that there are only 327 total beds available for Ebola patients in the entire country.

Meanwhile, hundreds or even thousands of anonymous victims, many of whom are children, are believed to be dying at home without proper medical care due to the lack of beds. Families of dying victims are reportedly driving them to hospitals in the larger cities, only to be turned away and sent home because there's no more room.

"We are facing the frightening prospect of an epidemic which is spreading like wildfire across Sierra Leone, with the number of new cases doubling every three weeks," stated Rob MacGillivray, country director of Save the Children.

"Children, more than anyone, are suffering painful, anonymous and undignified deaths at home. It's very difficult at this stage to even give accurate figures on the number of children who are dying from Ebola, as monitoring systems cannot keep pace with the outbreak."

Ebola infection rate expected to double by November

With the number of new Ebola cases doubling weekly, experts predict that, by the end of October, one new person will become infected with Ebola every six minutes rather than 12. This means that 10 new people every hour will contract Ebola by November, and potentially 40 new people every hour by December, and so on into the new year.

"This is not only an immediate humanitarian threat, but risks completely undoing the hard work which has been done to build up fragile health systems in Sierra Leone and Liberia after the devastating wars of the past few decades," added Justin Forsyth, CEO of Save the Children.

Recovered Ebola victim donates blood to vaccine research

A British nurse who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone but later recovered is reportedly donating his blood to vaccine researchers who will use it to develop new jabs against the virus. It is believed that William Pooley's blood now contains antibodies against Ebola that can be used in the larger effort to contain the outbreak.

Pooley recently spent time in the U.S. giving his blood, and he is now traveling back to West Africa to help train new health workers in battling the outbreak. The media says Pooley, the first Briton to contract the virus during the current outbreak, is "acting as an ambassador for the crusade against Ebola."

"We need beds and we need people looking after the patients in the beds," stated Pooley to BBC News, calling on the international community to do whatever it takes to stop the "horror and the misery" being caused by Ebola.

To learn more about how to prepare for a potential Ebola crisis here in the U.S., be sure to check out:
BioDefense.com.

Sources:

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk

http://www.theguardian.com

http://www.aljazeera.com

http://www.bbc.com

http://science.naturalnews.com