Women More at Risk of Dying From Ebola

The current Ebola outbreak may ultimately infect as many as 20,000 people and a disproportionate number of those cases will be women, experts say.

Sick women rest while hoping to enter the new Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Ebola treatment center in Liberia. Getty Images

Since this strain of the disease first hit Guinea in May, 1,552 people have succumbed to Ebola, which has been rapidly making its way through four countries in West Africa, the Associated Press reported. More women than men are contracting the disease though, since they traditionally serve as health care workers and are the ones who are expected to look after ill family members, according to UNICEF.

Women account for 55 to 60 percent of victims who have died from Ebola in the current epidemic in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according UNICEF.

Dr. Stella Adadevoh

Dr. Stella Adadevoh, a female consultant physician, in Lagos who headed the medical team that treated Patrick Sawyer (the Liberian that brought Ebola into Nigeria), was the first to contract and die of the disease in country.

Also a woman tested positive for Ebola Virus Disease few days ago after sharing a ward with Dr. Ikechukwu Sam. Enemuo at SamSteel Hospital in Port Harcourt, Nigeria's oil hub.

Dr. Enemuo who died last week contracted the virus after treating someone who came in contact with the Liberian-American man who was the first recorded case of the virus in Africa's most populous country.

The late Enemuo’s sister in-law, simply identified as Chinyere, who was with him during his illness, has been admitted at a quarantine centre in Port Harcourt.  She became feverish, and has been isolated as her result is being awaited.

According to The Washington Post, Health teams in Liberia recently reported that women made up 75 percent of victims who were infected or died from Ebola.