Dr. Kent Brantly
the first Ebola Virus Disease
patient on American soil, who arrived
Emory University Hospital, Georgia in Atlanta on a medical plane from Liberia
on Saturday, “seems to be improving,” a top US health official said Sunday.
Kent Brantly is being treated in an isolation unit at Emory
University hospital in Atlanta.
“It’s encouraging that he seems to be improving. That’s
really important, and we’re hoping he’ll continue to improve,” said Tom
Frieden, the director of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control.
“But Ebola is such a scary disease because it’s so deadly,”
he added, speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation.
More than 700 people have died in West Africa.
A report monitored on the Cable News Network, CNN,
yesterday, quoted Emory saying it will treat Brantly, 33, and fellow
missionary, Nancy Writebol, in an isolation unit..
This will be the first human Ebola test for a U.S. medical
facility. The patients will be treated at an isolated unit where precautions
are in place to keep such deadly diseases from spreading, unit supervisor Dr.
Bruce Ribner said.
Everything that comes in and out of the unit will be
controlled, Ribner said, and it will have windows and an intercom for staff to
interact with patients without being in the room.
Ebola is not airborne or waterborne, and spreads through
contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and other
secretions of infected people.
There is no FDA-approved treatment for Ebola, and Emory will
use what Ribner calls “supportive care.” That means carefully tracking a
patient’s symptoms, vital signs and organ function and taking measures, such as
blood transfusions and dialysis, to keep patients stable.
“We just have to keep the patient alive long enough in order
for the body to control this infection,” Ribner said.
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