As of mid-October, there were almost 9,000 victims of the deadly Ebola virus, of whom more than 4,500 were confirmed dead. The true death toll is certainly higher because of natural under-reporting added to the fear of being labeled with a disease with no cure and a death rate of 70 percent.
Some experts predict that more than 200,000 Ebola victims by the end of 2014, with more than 100,000 dead.
This is — as yet — far from the fabled epidemics of history, such as influenza after the First World War, which infected 500 million people, of whom 50 to 100 million died, or the Black Death of 1346-50, which wiped out between 30 and 70 percent of the population of Europe and may have caused up to 75 million deaths worldwide over a longer period.