The death rate so far in the world's worst outbreak of Ebola is not as extreme as recorded in the past, but experts expect it to prove no less virulent in the end, once more victims succumb and the grim data are tallied up.
Latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) record 1,603 cases of Ebola in the West African outbreak and 887 deaths — a death rate of just over 55 percent.
That is well below the 78.5 percent average death rate over 14 past outbreaks of the same virus — called the "Zaire strain" after the former name of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it was first detected in 1976. In some outbreaks the rate was up to 90 percent, according to WHO data.