July 27, 2014 -- Updated 1140 GMT (1940 HKT)
An American doctor trying to quell the Ebola outbreak in Liberia is now
infected with the virus, the organization for which he works said. FULL STORY
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IS IT TIME TO TEST EXPERIMENTAL VACCINES?
July 27, 2014 -- Updated 0741 GMT (1541 HKT)
Dr. Kent Brantly, left, treats an Ebola patient.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Dr. Kent Brantly fell ill after treating Ebola patients in Liberia
- The current outbreak of Ebola virus is the deadliest ever, health officials say
- The outbreak has been centered in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia
- A doctor working on the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is also infected
Dr. Kent Brantly is now
hospitalized and undergoing treatment at an isolation center, the
Christian humanitarian group Samaritan's Purse said.
The 33-year-old doctor
had been treating Ebola patients and started feeling ill, Samaritan's
Purse spokeswoman Melissa Strickland said. Once he started noticing the
symptoms last week, Brantly isolated himself.
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His Ebola infection was confirmed Saturday.
Brantly, the medical
director for Samaritan Purse's Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center
in Monrovia, Liberia, has been in the country since last October,
Strickland said.
"When the Ebola outbreak
hit, he took on responsibilities with our Ebola direct clinical
treatment response, but he was serving in a missionary hospital in
Liberia prior to his work with Ebola patients," she said.
Deadliest Ebola outbreak
Health officials say the current Ebola outbreak, centered in West Africa, is the deadliest ever.
As of July 20, some 1,093
people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are thought to have been
infected by Ebola since its symptoms were first observed four months
ago, according to the World Health Organization.
Testing confirmed the Ebola virus in 786 of those cases; 442 of those people died.
Of the 1,093 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, 660 people have died.
And there are fears the virus could spread to the Africa's most populous country, Nigeria.
Last week, a Liberian man hospitalized with Ebola in Lagos died, Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.
Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, has a population of more than 20 million people.
The man arrived at Lagos
airport on July 20 and was isolated in a local hospital after showing
symptoms associated with the virus. He told officials that he had no
direct contact with anyone with the virus nor attended the burial of
anyone who died of Ebola.
Another doctor infected
Confirmation of the death in Lagos followed news that a doctor who has played a key role in fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is infected with the disease, according to that country's Ministry of Health.
Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan is
being treated by the French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres -- also
known as Doctors Without Borders -- in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, agency
spokesman Tim Shenk said.
Before falling ill, Khan
had been overseeing Ebola treatment and isolation units at Kenema
Government Hospital, about 185 miles east of the capital, Freetown.
Ebola typically kills
90% of those infected, but the death rate in this outbreak has dropped
to roughly 60% thanks to early treatment.
Spread by bodily fluids
Officials believe that
the Ebola outbreak has taken such a strong hold in West Africa due to
the proximity of the jungle -- where the virus originated -- to Conakry,
Guinea, which has a population of 2 million.
Because symptoms don't
immediately appear, the virus can easily spread as people travel around
the region. Once infected with the virus, many people die in an average
of 10 days as the blood fails to clot and hemorrhaging occurs.
The disease isn't
contagious until symptoms appear. Symptoms include fever, headache and
fatigue. At that point, the Ebola virus is spread via bodily fluids.
Health workers are at
especially high risk, since they are in close contact with infected
people and their bodily fluids. Adding to the danger, doctors may
mistake the initial stages of an Ebola infection for another, milder
illness.
CNN's Jeremy Grisham and Laura Smith-Spark and journalist Aminu Abubakar in Nigeria contributed to this report.
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