US doctor with Ebola virus arrives in Atlanta for treatment

A US doctor infected with the Ebola virus in Africa was able to walk from an ambulance into an Atlanta hospital on Saturday after he arrived in the US on a specially equipped plane, officials say.

It marks the first time any-one infected with Ebola, considered one of the world's deadliest diseases, is believed to have been brought into the country for treatment. A second US aid worker infected with the virus was expected to arrive within a couple days at Emory University, which has one of the most sophisticated isolation rooms in the country. US officials are confident the patients can be treated with-out putting the public in danger.

Fear that the outbreak, which has killed more than 700 people in Africa, could spread in the US has generated considerable anxiety among some Americans. But infectious-disease experts said the public faces zero risk as Emory University Hospital treats a critically ill missionary doctor and a charity worker who were infected in Liberia.

The private plane outfitted with a special, portable tent designed for transporting patients with highly infectious diseases arrived late morning at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel James Wilson confirmed. Dr. Kent Brantly, who was infected while treating Ebola patients in Liberia for the US-based aid group Samaritan's Purse, was taken from the plane into a waiting ambulance.

The ambulance from Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital left the base in Marietta, Georgia, and drove without lights or sirens the approximately 25 km to Emory University Hospital where Brantly and the other aid worker will be treated. The ambulance was flanked only by a few SUVs and a police car for the short trip to the hospital along a wide-open freeway with little to no traffic.

Once at the hospital, a person in white protective clothing from head to toe climbed down from the back of the ambulance. Another person in the same type of hazmat-looking suit took the man's gloved hands and guided him toward an Emory building. Kent Brantly's wife, Amber, said her husband was able to walk into the hospital.

The second patient, Nancy Writebol, will be brought from Africa soon, the hospital said. The two seriously ill Americans worked for North Carolina-based Samaritan's Purse and US-based SIM at a Liberian hospital that treated Ebola patients. Liberia is one of the three West Africa countries hit by the largest Ebola outbreak in history.

Dr. Jay Varkey, an infectious-disease specialist at Emory who will be involved in Brantly's care, said the hospital's isolation unit is well-equipped to handle patients with diseases that are even more infectious than Ebola. The hospital is located just down a hill from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(China Daily 08/04/2014 page12)