The deadly Ebola epidemic ravaging west Africa and menacing Western economies has the potential to become "the definitive humanitarian disaster of our generation," Oxfam warned on Saturday, according to a report in The Guardian.

The international anti-poverty group issued a bleak call for more support from developed countries to fight the deadly virus, currently laying waste to the populations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Gunea. The World Health Organization is warning the current outbreak, the worst Ebola epidemic world has ever seen, could grow to as many as 10,000 new west African cases per week by year's end.