Two aid workers from the US who are seriously ill with Ebola are being brought from West Africa for treatment in one of the most tightly sealed isolation units in the US, officials said. It is to be the first time anyone with the disease has been brought into the country.
One was to arrive yesterday in a small private jet outfitted with a special tent designed for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases. The second is to arrive a few days later, said doctors at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, where they will be treated.
US officials are confident the patients can be treated without putting the public in danger.
Photo: AFP
Ebola, which has no cure, is spread through direct contact with blood or other bodily fluids from an infected person.
The outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the largest ever, has sickened more than 1,300 people and killed more than 700 this year.
The two US citizens — Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol — worked for US missionary groups in Liberia at a hospital that treated Ebola patients.
The US Department of State and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are assisting the transfers.
The US is working to ensure that any Ebola-related evacuations “are carried out safely, thereby protecting the patient and the American public,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement released on Friday.
A US Department of Defense spokesman said Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, would be used for the transfer.
The aircraft is a Gulfstream jet fitted with a specialized, collapsible clear tent designed to house a single patient and stop any infectious germs from escaping. It was built to transfer CDC employees exposed to contagious diseases for treatment. The CDC said the private jet can accommodate only one patient at a time.
Brantly and Writebol were in serious condition and still in Liberia on Friday, according to the US-based charity Samaritan’s Purse, which is paying for their transfer and medical care.
Hospital spokesman Vincent Dollard said the first patient was scheduled to arrive yesterday.
Brantly, 33, works for Samaritan’s Purse while Writebol works for another US mission group called SIM.
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