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Nigerian doctor who died from Ebola virus treated patients, leaving dozens at risk


Protective suits hang in the quarantine station for patients with infectious diseases at the Charite hospital in Berlin. The ward is one of several in Germany equipped to treat patients suffering from Ebola. The sign reads: "Do not enter. Infectious diseases. No trespassing!"
(Thomas Peter / Reuters)

American missionary describes battling Ebola: "There were some very, very dark days."

Global health officials have warned that the most severe Ebola outbreak in history appears to be worsening

Nigerian doctor who died from Ebola virus treated patients, leaving dozens at risk

September 3, 2014, 4:01 PM

A Nigerian doctor with Ebola carried on treating patients and met scores of friends, relatives and medics before his death, leaving about 60 of them at high risk of infection, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday.

Members of his church visited him in hospital in the oil hub Port Harcourt and performed a healing ceremony "said to involve the laying on of hands", said the U.N. agency.

"Given these multiple high-risk exposure opportunities, the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Port Harcourt has the potential to grow larger and spread faster than the one in Lagos," the WHO said.

The doctor, whom the WHO did not name, was infected by a man who fled quarantine in Lagos, who was himself linked to the first case in Africa's most populous country, a Liberian man who sought treatment in Lagos.

The doctor's wife and one of his patients had since caught the deadly disease and 200 people who came into contact with him were being monitored for symptoms including fever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea, the WHO said.

Of these, around 60 are considered to have had high-risk or very high-risk exposure, it said.

Two days after developing the symptoms on Aug. 11, he went on treating patients at his private clinic and operated on two of them, the WHO statement said.

"Prior to hospitalisation, the physician had numerous contacts with the community, as relatives and friends visited his home to celebrate the birth of a baby," the WHO added.

During his six days in hospital before dying on Aug. 22, he came into contact with the members of his church and was "attended by the majority of the hospital's health care staff."

There is now a 26-bed isolation facility for Ebola cases in Port Harcourt, "with plans for possible expansion", the WHO said.

Travellers are being screened at domestic and international airport gates in the city, the capital of Rivers State, it said.

Efforts have been stepped up to educate the public about the disease with the help of local religious and community leaders, the WHO said.

"However, civil unrest, security issues, and public fear of Ebola create serious problems that could hamper response operations. Military escorts are needed for movements into the isolation and treatment centre," it said.

There is no cure or vaccine although an experimental drug made by a U.S.-based Mapp Pharmaceutical Inc. has been given to several patients who survived. The virus can kill up to 90 percent of those infected.


Women stop to clean their hands with a sanitiser before entering the John Fitzgerald Kennedy hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, on Sept. 1.
(Dominique Faget, AFP/Getty Images)


Nancy Writebol
Courtesy of SIM
[ http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/09/03/ebola-infected-missionary-describes-her-battle-with-deadly-virus/ ]

American missionary infected with Ebola describes 'dark days'

Smiling and appearing robustly healthy, an American missionary infected with Ebola while working in Liberia on Wednesday shared publicly her battle with the deadly virus for the first time.

Nancy Writebol, 59, of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been recovering in an undisclosed location since her release last month from an Atlanta hospital that also treated another missionary who contracted the often lethal virus.

She told reporters there were mornings when she woke up and thought with surprise, "I'm alive."

The moment stood in stark contrast to other news of the day: A 51-year-old physician, Dr. Rick Sacra [ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-american-ebola-20140903-story.html ], is the latest missionary worker to be infected with Ebola while working in Liberia, the Christian organization SIM USA said on Wednesday.

Sacra had been delivering babies and working with patients who were not known to have the deadly virus, the organization said. It had not yet determined how he contracted the disease.

He had been following protocols for containment of the disease. Sacra is receiving care within the missionary's isolated Ebola unit in Monrovia.

More than 1,900 people have died in the world's worst outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, the head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, marking a major acceleration in fatalities from just over 1,500 last week.

Writebol notes 'dark days'

"I thought whether I live or whether I die, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay," she said, speaking at times through tears about her recovery at the Charlotte headquarters of the Christian organization that she worked with, SIM USA.

Still, "there were many times when I thought, 'I don't think I am going to make it any more," she told reporters at the group's Charlotte headquarters. "There were some very, very dark days."

On Tuesday, SIM USA said another U.S. doctor involved with its mission in Liberia had contracted the disease. The group, which has not disclosed the physician's name, is expected to provide additional detail on Wednesday and has said the physician is doing well and in good spirits.

Writebol's account of her illness comes as global health officials warned that the most severe Ebola outbreak in history appears to be worsening.

For Writebol, her recovery involved a dramatic medical journey that drew international attention as well as scrutiny over treatment options.

After contracting the disease in Liberia in July, she was flown back to the United States to receive care in an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

She was also one of a few patients to receive an experimental treatment, Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc's ZMapp, although doctors at Emory said they could not determine whether it made a difference in her recovery.

During the course of her illness, she endured "dark hours of fear and loneliness," her husband has said, leaving the hospital virus-free, but in weakened condition.

A mother of two, Writebol has been recuperating in an undisclosed location with her husband, fellow missionary David Writebol, who was also in Liberia but developed no symptoms.

She was treated at Emory with another U.S. missionary, Dr. Kent Brantly, a Texas doctor who also received ZMapp and was also released last month.

Brantly, who worked with another missionary group called Samaritan's Purse, this week said he felt like he was going to die during the throes of the illness but somehow recovered.

"I don't think there is anything special about me that made God save my life," he told NBC News in an interview, which aired late Tuesday and early Wednesday. "I survived. That is not to say that for everybody else who died God was absent."

Copyright 2014 Thomson Reuters

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