New data paints a much bleaker picture of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. On Monday the World Health Organization predicted that without urgent improvements, there will be more than 20,000 cases of Ebola by early November, with thousands of deaths per week. Ebola is at risk of taking root and becoming endemic in West Africa. WHO strategy director Christopher Dye said Ebola is nowhere near under control.

Christopher Dye: “One of the key messages that we want to get across is that we are now in the third explosive phase of growth of the epidemic. This is exponential increase, with hundreds, going into thousands, of cases per week, and if we don’t stop the epidemic very soon, this is going to turn from a disaster into a catastrophe.”

The WHO’s official death toll has topped 2,800 with about 6,000 total cases, but that is likely a vast underestimation. A New York Times reporter who visited a cemetery in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, reported 110 Ebola victims have been buried there in just over a week. By contrast, since the outbreak began, the country’s Health Ministry has confirmed just 10 deaths for the entire city and its suburbs. Sierra Leone recently imposed a lockdown and house-to-house searches, recording at least 130 new Ebola cases and 39 suspected cases.