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Projections for the spread of the deadly virus show that 1.4 million people across west Africa could be carrying the infection by 2015

The number of Ebola cases in west Africa could surpass 1.4 million by January and the disease could become endemic, scientists warned in two separate reports published on Tuesday.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said that, unless “drastic improvements in control measures” were made, the number of cases - currently 5,800 – could nearly quadruple to 21,000 by the end of next month.

Christopher Dye, the head of strategy at the WHO and a co-author of the study, said: “We’ve rather modestly only extended the projections to Nov 2, but if you go to...Jan 2, you’re into hundreds of thousands.”

He said it was feared that the virus, which has killed more than 2,800 people this year in the deadliest outbreak in history, could become a “permanent feature of the human population”.

The epidemic might simply “rumble on as it has for the last few months for the next few years”, he added.

The research by the UN-funded agency also found that the death rate for the current outbreak may be higher than previously calculated – closer to 70 per cent instead of 55 per cent. So far Ebola has killed more than 2,800 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The WHO study echoed a “worst-case scenario” report from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. It warned that, without significant increases in international efforts to stem the spread of the virus, it could infect hundreds of thousands in the next three months, leaving 1.4 million sick by January.

The WHO also reported that the number of health workers killed by the disease had increased.

The agency said that as of Sept 22, a total of 348 health care workers were known to have developed Ebola and 186 of them had died. Half of the cases were in Liberia and 67 in Guinea, which along with Sierra Leone have been worst hit by the outbreak.

In Nigeria, 11 health workers have contracted the disease and five have died. In total, Nigeria has had eight Ebola deaths and 20 cases.

The warnings came as the first humanitarian representitives from Britain arrived in Sierra Leone to begin a £100 million aid mission.

More than 160 staff from the NHS have volunteered to join British teams travelling to the infection zone to try to help. They will be based at a new 62-bed treatment centre in the country.

Phillip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, said: “This outbreak has wide-ranging humanitarian and security consequences for the region, and the world.

“Defeating this disease will need a global coalition, as well as innovative approaches to reducing the spread of the virus in communities.”

Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary, said: “Britain’s plan will triple bed provision in the country, but we cannot do this alone. Sierra Leone needs urgent offers of support from foreign medical teams and international donors.”

Prof Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a member of the team that discovered Ebola in 1976, said the current outbreak was very different from the 24 others that had preceded it.

“It’s the first time that entire nations are involved and affected; it’s the first time that capital cities are involved with huge urban populations,” he said. “The result is that we have something that I think is a humanitarian crisis. It’s no longer a disease outbreak.”

Prof Piot described the coming together of decades of civil war, corrupt dictatorships, dysfunctional health systems and a slow initial response to the epidemic as a “perfect storm”.