A US photojournalist joined a Spanish nurse in being declared free of Ebola on Tuesday, as the US tightened restrictions on travelers from the west African countries at the epicenter of the outbreak.
In west Africa, medical charity Medecin Sans Frontiers (MSF, Doctors Without Borders), at the forefront of the Ebola fight, announced on Tuesday it had saved a 1,000th patient from the deadly virus.
However, the survivor stories came as cases continued to soar in west Africa, where more than 4,500 people have died. The epidemic, which is proving fatal in 70 percent of cases, is already the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
Experts warn the infection rate could reach 10,000 a week by early December. The hemorrhagic fever, for which there is no licensed vaccine or cure, has hit hardest in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, but several isolated cases among health workers in Spain and the US raised fears of the epidemic spreading globally.
The WHO said on Tuesday it would probe complaints that it had been slow to wake up to the scale of Ebola, but insisted the focus now must be on battling the epidemic.
Critics have questioned why WHO only declared an international health emergency in August, eight months after the epidemic began in Guinea.
The recovery of Ashoka Mukpo, the US freelance cameraman who fell ill in Liberia, may slightly ease concerns in the US, but authorities are also responding to public pressure with stricter controls for travelers from affected countries.
New measures were to go into effect yesterday that would see passengers arriving in the US from the worst-affected three African countries funneled into five airports with extra health checks.
However, a number of US lawmakers from both parties insisted the measures did not go far enough. They sought a suspension of visas from the three hardest-hit countries, and some urging a 21-day quarantine for Americans exposed to Ebola.
“Containment is the key to stopping the spread of this highly contagious and deadly disease,” a group of 16 lawmakers who have worked as doctors or nurses said in a letter to US President Barack Obama.
Obama has urged against Ebola “hysteria” and cited experts saying a travel ban would be counterproductive.
Mukpo, who was working for NBC News in Monrovia, Liberia, when he fell ill, was to go home from the hospital yesterday.
Eight people, including Mukpo, have been or are being treated for Ebola in the US, one of whom, a man from Liberia, has died.
Two nurses, infected while treating the Liberian man, remain hospitalized, but the National Institutes of Health said one, Nina Pham, is faring better, with her status “upgraded from fair to good.”
In Spain, the nurse who was the first person to catch Ebola outside Africa has also been cured, doctors said on Tuesday.
In Liberia, Doctors Without Borders said 18-year-old Kollie James, was, “out of all the patients cared for in MSF’s projects in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia... the one thousandth survivor.”
James’ father, Alexander, who worked as a health officer for MSF, said he had lost his wife, two daughters and a brother to the killer disease.
“Of course, I am so happy to have Kollie still, but it’s hard not to think of all those who are no longer with us,” he said.
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