The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that he is ‘confident’ about getting the number of Ebola cases down to zero.

Reuters reported that on Tuesday, Dr. Tom Frieden spoke to officials is Washington and voiced his confidence about eliminating the deadly disease.

"I remain very confident we can get to zero cases in this epidemic if we continue the way we're going and nothing unexpected happens," Frieden said. "The largest biggest risk is that it continues to fester and continues to spread at a low rate, which means it could flare up at any time. We have to get to zero and then stay at zero and that's going to require monitoring, surveillance."

FoxNews.com noted that the director also talked about his most recent trip to the Ebola-plagued countries in West Africa. Frieden said he saw progress in the handling of the patients infected with the virus and that more work would be done in combating the disease.

Ebola has claimed the lives of more than 8,000 people since the outbreak began last year. Most of the deaths have occurred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.