An American doctor who contracted the Ebola virus while treating patients in Liberia has recovered and will be discharged on Thursday after being treated with the experimental drug, ZMapp.
Kent Brantley was treated in Emory University Hospital in Atlanta Georgia; a second doctor with Ebola Nancy Writebol is also being treated with ZMapp there.
Brantly is expected to leave Emory after a news conference, according to a spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse, the charity for whom he works, Reuters reports.
“I have marveled at Dr Brantly’s courageous spirit as he fought this horrible virus with the help of the highly competent and caring staff at Emory University Hospital,” Franklin Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse said in statement.
Brantly was working at the Samaritan’s Purse Ebola Case Management Center in Liberia when he contracted the virus.
He was airlifted to the US August 2 and landed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia and was quickly rushed to Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital.
Three African doctors who have been treated with ZMapp in Liberia have also shown remarkable signs of recovery, Lewis Brandon, Liberia’s information minister, told Reuters on Tuesday.
However, the company that makes the experimental drug says its supplies of the drug have been exhausted.
2,473 people have been infected with Ebola and 1,350 have died since the outbreak was first spotted in south eastern Guinea in March.
So far the disease has been confined to Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, although cases have been suspected elsewhere.
Health authorities in nearby Togo said on Thursday that two suspected cases were tested for the virus, including a sailor from the Philippines.
In other developments in the Ebola outbreak, four people have been injured in clashes with police during demonstrations in a quarantined zone of the Liberian capital Monrovia.
The clashes broke out after Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian president, quarantined the West Point and Dolo Town slums near Monrovia.
The authorities say Liberians have ignored health warnings due to continued denials and differing cultural practices and that they have no choice but to implement quarantines and curfews in some areas. The country is already under a state of emergency.
This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.