FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - Sierra Leone recorded 121 deaths from Ebola and scores of new infections in one of the single deadliest days since the disease appeared in the West African country more than four months ago, government health statistics showed on Sunday. The figures, which covered the period through Saturday, put the total number of deaths at 678, up from 557 the day before. The daily statistics compiled by Sierra Leone's Emergency Operations Centre also showed 81 new cases of the hemorrhagic fever.
Ebola was first reported in Guinea in March and has since spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone in what has become the worst epidemic of the disease since Ebola was identified in 1976. Smaller outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal were brought under control. The United States last week confirmed its first Ebola case, a Liberian national who had traveled to Texas. The overall death toll from the epidemic reached 3,439 out of a total of 7,492 cases in West Africa and the United States as of Oct. 1, the World Health Organization said last week. The U.N. agency's statistics varied from those compiled by Sierra Leone.
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