FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — A third top doctor has died from Ebola in Sierra Leone, a government official said Wednesday, as a leading American health official warned that the outbreak sweeping West Africa would get worse.

The disease has already killed more than 1,400 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and Doctors Without Borders warned that the tremendous influx of patients in Liberia, in particular, is overwhelming their treatment centers there.

Additional Images

Residents, who are in an Ebola quarantine area, complain to a security officer as they wait for their relatives to bring them food and essentials, in West Point, Monrovia August 23, 2014. In an attempt to contain the virus, Liberia imposed a quarantine in West Point, a large slum in the capital Monrovia, on August 19. Security forces have been deployed to stop people from entering or leaving the area.
Residents, who are in an Ebola quarantine area, complain to a security officer as they wait for their relatives to bring them food and essentials, in West Point, Monrovia August 23, 2014. In an attempt to contain the virus, Liberia imposed a quarantine in West Point, a large slum in the capital Monrovia, on August 19. Security forces have been deployed to stop people from entering or leaving the area. Reuters

“I wish I didn’t have to say this, but it is going get worse before it gets better,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at the end of a visit to Liberia.

Liberia has recorded the highest number of cases and deaths of any of the four countries. Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that a new treatment center recently opened in the country’s capital with 120 beds filled up almost immediately.

The tremendous number of patients means that the medical charity is not able to provide those patients with intravenous treatments, a primary way doctors keep people who are losing a tremendous amount of fluid alive.

The group did not mention Frieden’s visit or recent U.N. ones, but it said discussions happening now about international coordination are coming too late and that there are countries that could make a dramatic difference if they provided more expertise and resources.

“This is not only an Ebola outbreak – it is a humanitarian emergency, and it needs a full-scale humanitarian response,” Lindis Hurum, the group’s emergency coordinator in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, said.

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