https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jIJbwU7rQs
Dr. Kent Brantly, the first patient ever to receive an experimental ebola drug, is back on his feet after what some are describing as a miraculous recovery, CNN reports.
Nancy Writebol, a second American missionary with ebola received the same treatment and arrived back in the U.S. today on a special plane outfitted with a microbial containment center.
Brantly’s and Writebol’s condition improved significantly after receiving the medication, CNN reports. Brantly was able to walk into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after being evacuated to the U.S. last week.
Brantly, with Samaritan’s Purse, and Writebol, with Service in Mission, are medical missionaries who were infected with ebola while working with patients in Liberia, USAToday reports.
A Gulfstream jet specially outfitted with an isolation pod, brought Brantly, 33, to Emory University in Atlanta from Liberia on Saturday, WLBZ-TV reports.
On Thursday, Brantly thought he was going to die, CNN reports. It was the ninth day since he became sick with ebola in Liberia. His condition was deteriorating by the minute and he called his wife to say goodbye. The call was premature.
The experimental drug, known as ZMapp, was developed by San Diego-based biotech firm Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. The patients were told that the treatment had never been tried before on humans but had shown promise in experiments with monkeys, according to CNN.
Four monkeys infected with ebola survived after being given the therapy within 24 hours after infection. Two of four other monkeys that started therapy within 48 hours after infection also survived. One monkey that was not treated died within
five days of exposure to the virus.
Brantly and Writebol were aware of the risk of taking a new, little-understood treatment and gave informed consent, according to two sources familiar with the care
of the missionary workers, CNN reports.
The monkeys had been given the experimental drug within 48 hours of infection. Brantly got it after he’d been infected for nine days.
The medicine was made by exposing mice to fragments of the Ebola
virus. Antibodies generated in the mice’s blood were harvested to create the medicine, which works by preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells.
On Monday, 59-year-old Writebol was in serious condition, according to Service In Mission USA, USAToday reports.
Writebol’s son, Jeremy, said his mother “is still struggling” but that “there seems to be improvement.”
The World Health Organization said in its most recent update on the disease that the number of reported cases from the latest outbreak has risen to 1,603, with 887 deaths. The week ending Aug. 1 saw 163 new cases and 61 deaths, the health agency said.
World Bank has pledged as much as $200 million in emergency funding to help Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Late Monday, officials at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York admitted a man who had recently been to West Africa and was showing symptoms — high fever and
gastrointestinal problems — consistent with ebola.
However, the New York City Health Department later said ebola is unlikely.
