French Ebola Patient Recovers
by VOA News October 04, 2014
The health ministry of France says a French nurse who contracted Ebola in Liberia while working for Doctors Without Borders has recovered.
She was treated at a hospital near Paris.
Separately Saturday, a hospital in the German city of Hamburg said it has successfully treated and discharged a Senegalese scientist who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone.
The World Health Organization says the current outbreak of the disease — the worst on record — has infected more than 7,400 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, including hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health workers. More than 3,400 of the victims have died.
The outbreak has raised fears around the world.
In the United States, federal health officials escorted two passengers off of a United Airlines flight that landed in New Jersey Saturday after at least one of them exhibited possible signs of Ebola.
ABC News reported the passengers were a man and his daughter, both believed to be from Liberia. ABC quoted an official briefed on the situation as saying the father was reported to have been vomiting on the flight, but there is 'no clear indication' that he has Ebola.
Both passengers were removed by officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were dressed in hazmat gear.
The plane they were on, United Flight 998, arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport from Brussels. News reports said the rest of the passengers were cleared to leave.
And the hospital in Dallas, Texas treating a Liberian national who had traveled from Liberia to the U.S. with Ebola said Saturday his condition had worsened from serious to critical.
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tom Frieden, said none of the nine people who had direct contact with the Dallas patient has shown symptoms.
He said Saturday they are being monitored along with another 40 people who may have had contact with him. He said the CDC has had inquiries about 100 potential Ebola cases in the U.S. since the case in Dallas was confirmed, and none of them has been positive for Ebola.
Meanwhile, an infected U.S. cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia will arrive in the U.S. Monday. Ashoka Mukpo's father says his son will be treated at a facility in Omaha, Nebraska.
The Pentagon said it could deploy as many as 4,000 troops to help contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. U.S. President Barack Obama said initially that 3,000 would go to fight the disease. About 200 U.S. soldiers are already in Liberia, setting up headquarters for the U.S. mission, which will train health care workers and set up medical facilities.
The Ebola virus is spread by direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected patients. It causes vomiting, diarrhea and in the worst cases, uncontrollable bleeding.
There is no known cure, but an American doctor diagnosed with the virus was found to be Ebola-free after taking an experimental drug in August.
Some information for this report comes from Reuters.
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