Ebola Patient 'Dr. Kent Brantly' Arrives At Atlanta Hospital!

American doctor infected with Ebola returns to U.S.

The first of two Americans stricken with the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia arrived at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta Saturday. (Reuters)
By Joel Achenbach, Brady Dennis and Caelainn Hogan August 2 at 3:30 PM   

An American doctor stricken by Ebola in West Africa arrived home for treatment in Atlanta on Saturday, and U.S. government officials are urging the public to remain confident in the health-care system’s ability to keep the deadly disease isolated.

A charity organization, Samaritan’s Purse, said two Americans in serious condition with the disease were being evacuated: Kent Brantly, a Fort Worth doctor who had been treating Ebola victims in Liberia, and Nancy Writebol, a missionary from Charlotte.

Brantly and Writebol have been hospitalized in serious condition in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. Brantly was brought back to the United States first, in a specially equipped “air ambulance” aircraft that landed Saturday at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, in the northwest Atlanta suburbs, according to news reports.

He was being taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, which has one of four facilities in the country designed to handle such cases.

Once at the hospital, one person in white protective clothing from head to toe climbed down from the back of the ambulance and a second person in the same type of hazmat-looking suit appeared to take his gloved hands and guide him toward a building at Emory, the Associated Press reported.

United States issues travel warnings against visiting Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea as virus’s death toll climbs. An American physician, Kent Brantly, who contracted the virus in Liberia was transported to the United States for treatment.


Dr. Kent Brantly working at an Ebola treatment clinic in Foya, Liberia on June 23.


 Brantly and Nancy Writebol, an aid worker, are suffering from Ebola. Brantly arrived in the United States on Saturday, the first time anyone infected with the deadly virus has been brought into the country. He was being treated at a special isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.Samaritan's Purse/European Pressphoto Agency

“The patients will be escorted throughout by specially and frequently trained teams that have sufficient resources to transport the patients so that there is no break in their medical care or exposure to others,” said Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John F. Kirby.

The news of the return to U.S. soil of the two Ebola patients prompted a jittery response on social media, highlighting the special terror that the virus has come to carry for Americans familiar with movies such as“Outbreak” and the best-selling Richard Preston book “The Hot Zone.”

For example, there was a much-publicized tweet Friday from Donald Trump: “Stop the EBOLA patients from entering the U.S. Treat them, at the highest level, over there. THE UNITED STATES HAS ENOUGH PROBLEMS!”

Ebola is not nearly as contagious as many other pathogens, such as influenza, but it’s unusually lethal. This outbreak, easily the largest ever, began in Guinea in March and had killed 729 people as of Sunday, including about 60 percent of people who had come down with the infection, according to the World Health Organization.

There is no cure for the Ebola virus disease. Treatments are limited to such basics as keeping a patient hydrated. The virus can incubate for up to 21 days before symptoms appear. They include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, massive internal and external bleeding, and multiple organ failure.

But officials on Friday stressed that fears of an Ebola outbreak in the United States are unwarranted. A person infected with Ebola is not contagious until becoming sick. The virus spreads only through direct contact with bodily fluids. It is not an airborne contagion. There have been multiple outbreaks in Africa in the past, and they have all been contained through old-fashioned techniques of quarantining patients.



An infected person could potentially travel to the United States carrying the virus. To heighten vigilance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent health-care professionals a new set of recommendations Friday for handling patients who might be suspected of having the disease.

more 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-confirms-2-americans-with-ebola-coming-home-for-treatment/2014/08/01/c20a27cc-1995-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html

Remember where the 500,000 plastic coffins are?
Atlanta!

Second American with Ebola to return Tuesday


Dr. Kent Brantly arrived in Atlanta Saturday afternoon as the first of two patients with Ebola to be treated at Emory University hospital. VPC

Natalie DiBlasio and John Bacon, USA TODAY3:42 p.m. EDT August 3, 2014




(Photo: Samaritan's Purse)

 


A second American stricken with the Ebola virus is expected to return to the USA Tuesday, three days after a doctor being treated for the disease arrived at an Atlanta hospital for intensive care.


Nancy Writebol, a medical missionary aiding in the treatment of Ebola victims in Liberia, is scheduled to leave that African nation around 1 a.m. Tuesday on a specially equipped medical evacuation plane, Liberian Information Minister Lewis Brown said, according to the Associated Press.


Kent Brantly, the American doctor transported to Atlanta Saturday, "seems to be improving," the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday.
Brantly is being treated in a special isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after arriving Saturday at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia. It's the first time anyone infected with the deadly virus has been brought into the country.


"We're hoping he'll continue to improve," Dr. Tom Frieden told CBS' Face the Nation.


 "But Ebola is such a scary disease because it's so deadly. I can't predict the future for individual patients."


Brantly and Writebol were serving in Liberia as medical missionaries when they became infected with the virus, which has killed 729 people and sickened more than 1,300 the West African nations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.


Frieden has said his agency received "nasty" e-mails and at least 100 calls from people questioning why the sick aid workers should be let into the USA. Physicians are confident, however, that the two Americans can be treated without putting the public in danger.



An ambulance arrives with Ebola victim Dr. Kent Brantly, right, at Emory University Hospital, Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014, in Atlanta.(Photo: AP)


The virus is spread through direct contact with blood, urine, saliva and other bodily fluids from an infected person. It is not spread through the air.


"I don't think it's in the cards that we would have widespread Ebola," Frieden said. He said the virus spreads in African hospitals where there isn't infection control and in burial rituals where people touch the bodies of Ebola victims. That won't happen here, he said.


"So it's not going to spread widely in the U.S. Could we have another person here, could we have a case or two? Not impossible," Frieden said. "We say in medicine never say never. But we know how to stop it here. But to really protect ourselves, the single most important thing we can do is stop it at the source in Africa. That's going to protect them and protect us."


Emory's infectious diseases unit was created 12 years ago to handle doctors who get sick at the CDC. It is one of about four in the country equipped with everything necessary to test, treat and contain people exposed to very dangerous viruses.


In 2005, it handled patients with severe acute respiratory syndromeSARS, which unlike Ebola can spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes.


In fact, the nature of Ebola — which is spread by close contact with bodily fluids and blood — means that any modern hospital using standard, rigorous infection-control measures should be able to handle it.


On Saturday, Amber Brantly expressed her happiness in having her husband back in the USA.


"It was a relief to welcome Kent home today," she said in a statement. "I spoke with him, and he is glad to be back in the U.S. I am thankful to God for his safe transport and for giving him the strength to walk into the hospital."





Nancy Writebol of Charlotte is a medical missionary with Service in Mission. She was working at a medical center in Liberia when she was diagnosed with Ebola. Her husband, David, has been allowed to visit her while wearing a suit to protect against hazardous materials.(Photo: Service in Mission)


Brantly, 33, of Fort Worth, had been working in Liberia for Samaritan's Purse overseeing an Ebola treatment center. Writebol, of Charlotte, was working at the center on behalf of the faith group Service in Mission. Samaritan's Purse is paying for their evacuation and medical care.
There's no specific treatment for Ebola so doctors try to ease symptoms, including fever, headache, vomiting and diarrhea. Some victims suffer severe bleeding.


Michael Stulman, a regional information officer in West and Central Africa for Catholic Relief Services, said Sunday that doctors and nurses there "are working in a particularly high-risk environment. They are typically are under-resourced. They're working 15- and even 20-hour days. Despite all their incredible efforts, sometimes mistakes happen and this is why we're seeing a fairly high number of Ebola-positive cases with nurses."


Treatment centers "are reaching full capacity soon after they are set up," he said in an e-mail. "Some of the observation units are not fully staffed. The cross-border nature of the outbreak and the accessibility of transport to major towns have made this outbreak particularly difficult to contain."


Among the main challenges in containing the outbreak, he said, were several circulating myths, including one that said doctors at hospitals "will give you injections that kill you" instead of treating the illness. "As a result of these myths, some families who have sought care are discharging confirmed patients from the hospital and bringing them home before they are recovered. Other people who have Ebola never go to the hospital and instead choose to stay at home with their family, which puts their family at risk of contracting the disease when caring for them."
Contributing: WXIA-TV in Atlanta; Doug Stanglin; the Associated Press

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/03/ebola-us-africa-brantly-ga/13536981/