Nearly 7000 people have died from Ebola in west Africa, the World Health Organization has reported, adding some 1200 more deaths to a toll from two days earlier.
A total of 16,169 people were infected with Ebola of whom 6,928 died in the three countries at the centre of the outbreak - Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia - the WHO said.
On Wednesday, the WHO had put the Ebola death toll in the three countries at 5674, with 15 additional deaths in other countries.
WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic attributed the steep hike in fatalities, mainly in Liberia, principally to "a reconciliation of historical numbers" and not to new deaths in recent days.
Given the difficulty in collecting figures, the agency has previously said it believes there have been far more deaths than those registered.
The deadliest Ebola outbreak ever has so far hit Liberia the hardest, although observers say the spread of the virus there has slowed significantly in recent weeks.
Nonetheless, Liberia accounts for the lion's share of the new deaths tallied, now counting 4181 deaths out of 7244 cases.
That compares to the 3016 deaths and 7168 cases in Wednesday's toll.
Sierra Leone, which according to the WHO is still seeing a rapid spread of Ebola in many parts of the country, now counts 1461 deaths out of 6802 cases, up from 1398 deaths and 6599 cases on November 26.
Guinea, where the outbreak began nearly a year ago, meanwhile counted 1284 deaths out of 2123 cases, up from 1260 deaths and 2134 cases two days earlier.
The WHO did not provide an update on other countries affected by the outbreak.
In the previous update the UN agency said Mali, the most recent county in the region hit by Ebola, had eight confirmed cases, six of which have proved fatal.
Nigeria, which has reported eight Ebola deaths, and Senegal, which only saw one case, have not recorded any new cases for 57 days. Both countries have now been declared Ebola-free.
There have been four Ebola cases in the United States, one of which was fatal.
