#News: Fourth Ebola Patient Arrives In U.S. For Treatment

[HuffingtonPost]

(Updates with patient's arrival)                

By Colleen Jenkins                

Sept 9 (Reuters) - A fourth Ebola patient arrived in the  United States from West Africa on Tuesday, headed to the same  Atlanta hospital where two other people were successfully  treated for the disease.                

An air ambulance carrying the new patient landed Tuesday  morning at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Atlanta television station  WSB-TV footage showed.                

Emory University Hospital confirmed it would be treating the  patient, who was not identified.                

The hospital said in an earlier statement that the patient  would be treated in the same isolation unit for serious  infectious diseases where U.S. missionaries Nancy Writebol and  Dr. Kent Brantly also received care for the lethal virus before  being discharged last month.                

Another American missionary, Dr. Rick Sacra, was also  transported to the United States from West Africa after becoming  infected with Ebola in Liberia. He is being treated at the  Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.                

Medical workers have been hit hard by the epidemic, the  worst since Ebola was discovered in 1976. As of late August,  more than 240 healthcare workers had developed the disease and  more than 120 had died, the WHO said.                

The outbreak has killed some 2,100 people overall in Guinea,  Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, and has also spread to  Senegal.                

The World Health Organization said on Monday that one of its  doctors stationed in an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone  had tested positive for the disease. That doctor was being  evacuated from Freetown, the WHO has said, without disclosing  the person's identity or where he or she was headed.                

It was not immediately clear if the patient arriving in  Atlanta on Tuesday was the WHO's physician or if the patient was  an American. The health organization has released no additional  information on their doctor, and representatives for the U.S.  State Department could not be immediately reached for comment.          (Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Susan Heavey)
Source: huffingtonPost