American with Ebola, An American health-care worker who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Sierra Leone is in serious condition, the National Institutes of Health said Friday.
The NIH said the health-care worker was admitted at 4:44 a.m. Friday to its high-containment facility on its Bethesda, Md., campus, after being evacuated to the U.S. by chartered jet. No further details were released.
The health-care worker is the 11th person to be treated for Ebola in the U.S. All but two have survived.
It has been months, though, since anyone confirmed to have the disease has been transported to the U.S. The most recent patient was Martin Salia, a surgeon who was in advanced stages of illness when he was evacuated from Sierra Leone in November. He died shortly after arriving. Others have since been evacuated and monitored by U.S. physicians after exposure to the Ebola virus.
The NIH facility is one of three in the U.S. that were built for the treatment of patients with serious infectious diseases and that have accepted Ebola patients. The government center has treated one other patient with Ebola: nurse Nina Pham, who was infected while treating a Liberian man who died in a Dallas hospital and was released in October. The facility has also monitored two people who were exposed to the disease while working in West Africa, but who ultimately weren’t infected.
The other specially built units where Ebola patients have been treated are at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Several Ebola patients have also been treated at facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
At least 24,350 people have been infected with Ebola in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since the epidemic erupted in December 2013, of whom 10,004 have died, according to the World Health Organization.
At its height, the number of Ebola patients was doubling every month. Now, the epidemic is fading, though not yet finished. It is still claiming lives in Guinea and in Sierra Leone, and it could still flare up again in Liberia.
Ebola causes a high fever, and, in terminal cases, internal bleeding and organ failure.
The NIH said the health-care worker was admitted at 4:44 a.m. Friday to its high-containment facility on its Bethesda, Md., campus, after being evacuated to the U.S. by chartered jet. No further details were released.
The health-care worker is the 11th person to be treated for Ebola in the U.S. All but two have survived.
It has been months, though, since anyone confirmed to have the disease has been transported to the U.S. The most recent patient was Martin Salia, a surgeon who was in advanced stages of illness when he was evacuated from Sierra Leone in November. He died shortly after arriving. Others have since been evacuated and monitored by U.S. physicians after exposure to the Ebola virus.
The NIH facility is one of three in the U.S. that were built for the treatment of patients with serious infectious diseases and that have accepted Ebola patients. The government center has treated one other patient with Ebola: nurse Nina Pham, who was infected while treating a Liberian man who died in a Dallas hospital and was released in October. The facility has also monitored two people who were exposed to the disease while working in West Africa, but who ultimately weren’t infected.
The other specially built units where Ebola patients have been treated are at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
Several Ebola patients have also been treated at facilities in the United Kingdom, Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
At least 24,350 people have been infected with Ebola in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia since the epidemic erupted in December 2013, of whom 10,004 have died, according to the World Health Organization.
At its height, the number of Ebola patients was doubling every month. Now, the epidemic is fading, though not yet finished. It is still claiming lives in Guinea and in Sierra Leone, and it could still flare up again in Liberia.
Ebola causes a high fever, and, in terminal cases, internal bleeding and organ failure.
