The Discovery Channel aired the first Ebola documentary on the current outbreak in West Africa at 10 p.m. ET on Sept. 18. The documentary, called "Ebola: Inside the Deadly Outbreak," was an hour-long special showing unseen footage and following healthcare workers around Ebola centers as well as villages in which the disease was present.

It was informative and heartbreaking. Streets were flooded and bodies collected from homes and in the streets. Ebola patients who were turned away from Ebola centers due to the center being full, would simply lie down outside the center, ill and waiting for treatment.

The WHO and CDC are estimating the total death toll to end somewhere around 20,000, but others have predicted over 4 million. Food prices are rising quickly, and quarantines are being imposed for entire counties in an effort to gain some kind of control over the disease. The truth of it is that the situation in West Africa is worse than ever, and the window to stop Ebola has likely closed.

Journalists are gripping the new death toll, released Sept. 18, by the WHO and not letting go. Some speculate that the new count, 2,630 dead and 5,357 infected, is actually a sign that we are gaining some kind of footing in fighting the viral outbreak. However, the numbers released by the WHO are misleading.

Firstly, the numbers are vastly underestimated by at least 20 percent, likely more. Why is this so? Some villages have created roadblocks so healthcare workers cannot enter, and they keep loved ones at home and bury them themselves. Some people come to the clinics and get tested, test positive and then disappear. Or, if loved ones become sick, they are abandoned and people run rather than going to clinics to get checked.

While in America that seems unfathomable, Americans must remember that the U.S. has extraordinary healthcare systems, and West Africa does not. In fact their healthcare systems are some of the poorest in the world. Now, with this disease spreading through communities, a virus that no one has seen in these countries before, it has become a well-known fact that once you go in to the clinics, you rarely come out. So, rather than die alone, people flee.

When the WHO reported its recent numbers, there was a bit of a disclaimer toward the bottom of the article. The 700 increase in deaths only accounts for five days in Liberia and one day for each Guinea and Sierra Leone, meaning there are four days of Sierra Leone numbers and Guinea that are missing. The true increase could be over 1,000 this week, combined. The number of cases has doubled in the past month, and the virus continues to rage out of control.

Aside from the fact that the death count is rising rapidly, there are other parts of this outbreak that are drawing serious attention. The Ebola virus is mutating rapidly, and while some scientists and virologists dismiss this as unimportant, it is incredibly relevant to this outbreak.

All viruses mutate — particularly viruses like Ebola which is a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus of the family Filoviridae. When replication takes place, transcription and translation, RNA polymerase — unlike DNA polymerase — cannot edit the nucleotides, so any mutations that occur, remain. This enables the virus to mutate quickly and efficiently.

Viruses want to survive, they want to be spread to other hosts, and in order to do that they need to be able to evolve to protections the host develops against them. One of the first things Ebola does is incapacitate the immune system, and it does so for a reason.

The fact that viruses have an agenda is one of the most terrifying aspects of viral illnesses. Not to mention that the seven total proteins in Ebola are completely unknown. It has also been discovered that the structure of the Ebola nucleoprotein, the protein that interacts with the viral genome, has a previously unknown tertiary fold, which could tell scientists how the virus assembles itself in infected cells.

There is also cause to believe that the virus, due to its high mutation rate, could become an airborne virus. The author of a recent article in The New York Times, Michael T. Osterholm, is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, a top-rated medical school. His article, "What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola," brings to light what people have been whispering since the beginning of the outbreak, "What if this virus truly goes airborne?"

And according to Osterholm, it is certainly possible, and the more people it infects the more chances it has to mutate to achieve this. It is reminiscent of the H1N1 influenza virus of 2009.

Other virologists are not dismissing his theory, and some are even taking it a step further.

A commentary was submitted to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy that was written by authors who are national experts on respiratory protection and infectious disease transmission. It goes on to prove that Ebola can already be spread through the air, and addresses all the misconceptions of what it means when a virus is aerosolized. When read in regard to Osterholm's article, it puts Ebola into an entirely new perspective.

In response to the growth of Ebola cases, some countries are opting to try anything. Sierra Leone decided to impose a three-day quarantine that started today. While they are saying it is to give families peace and time to reflect on Ebola, what it's really doing is causing food spikes and the potential for Ebola to spread further.

Large crowds gathered in the marketplace before the quarantine began to buy food, because they aren't sure if the quarantine will stop after three days. Originally, Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma wanted to remove Ebola victims from their houses during the quarantine, but now healthcare workers will go from door-to-door to educate people on Ebola. The only protection they will have is rain gear.

According to Koroma, it is better to do something than nothing, but in this case nothing could be further from the truth. This mandatory quarantine, which will have police and the military standing by, is a horrible idea. This was already attempted with West Point in Liberia, which ended up with people being shot and families running the risk of starving.

Unrest is growing in West Africa over this disease. Recently, a mixture of eight doctors and journalists were murdered in cold blood by villagers because they didn't trust them. Now may not be the best time to send strangers door-to-door; not to mention that they will likely meet Ebola patients, and the healthcare workers will have no protection.

The situation grows darker by the day at this point.

There's a dire need for rapid diagnostic tests, and the Ebola-hit countries are projected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, damaging their already fragile economy. There is even a black market now for convalescent blood — the blood of an Ebola survivor.

While the United Nations has promised more aid, the window for stopping Ebola is now questionable at best. There are more cases than there are beds, and there are more people dead than can be taken care of by Liberia's crematorium. At the rate the disease is growing, 20,000 cases are expected by the end of October, if things remain as they are. That pretty much takes care of the WHO's theory that it will take six months to see that many cases.

The U.S. is sending 3,000 troops into West Africa, but it is clear that Ebola needs international actions immediately. Humanity cannot afford to keep rolling the genetic dice, waiting for this virus to become more potent, more easily spread. If something isn't done soon, the only option left will be to watch the disease continue to rage until it burns itself out, and there are no projections for how long that could take.