US discharges two American Ebola patients treated with experimental drug

World Today

Dr. Kent Brantly (R) speaks with colleagues at the case management center on the campus of ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia in this undated handout photograph courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse. (REUTERS/Samaritan’s Purse/Handout via Reuters)

The two American aid workers who were infected with the deadly Ebola virus in Africa have been discharged from an Atlanta hospital after nearly three weeks of treatment, according to officials.

At least 2,473 people have been infected and 1,350 have died since the Ebola outbreak was identified in remote southeastern Guinea in December, the World Health Organization said.

CCTV America’s Daniel Ryntjes reports.

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The release of the two American aid workers poses no public health risk, Dr. Bruce Ribner of Emory University Hospital said. Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, and Nancy Writebol, 59, show no evidence of Ebola, and Ribner said that patients generally do not relapse and are not contagious once they’ve recovered.

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Both patients were given ZMapp, a drug used on a handful of patients in the West African outbreak and produced by U.S.-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical. But it’s not known whether the drug helped or whether they improved on their own, as has happened to others who have survived the disease. The treatment is so novel that it hasn’t been tested in people.

“I have marveled at Dr. Brantly’s courageous spirit as he has fought this horrible virus with the help of the highly competent and caring staff at Emory University Hospital,” Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, said in a statement.

“Today is a miraculous day,” Brantly, who walked in holding hands with his wife, said at a news conference.

No cases of the disease have been confirmed outside of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria despite cases having been suspected elsewhere, according to the WHO.

A senior health official in Togo said on Thursday that two suspected cases, including a sailor from the Philippines, were being tested for the virus.

Three African doctors, also treated with ZMapp in Liberia, have shown remarkable signs of improvement, according to the Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown. A Mapp spokesperson said its supplies of the drug have been exhausted.

Both American aid workers were infected while working at a missionary clinic outside Liberia’s capital. Brantly said he and his family first got word of the outbreak in March and “began preparing for the worst.” He said the hospital where he was working got its first Ebola patient in June, and then the number of patients increased steadily.

Report compiled with information from Reuters and The Associated Press