Dr. Rick Sacra flown back to U.S. from Liberia after contracting Ebola

A third U.S. doctor working for a charity organization in Liberia has contracted Ebola and should arrive at a Nebraska hospital for treatment sometime on September 5th. Since the deadly virus migrated from Guinea to Liberia and Sierra Leone earlier this year, West Africa has seen thousands of infections and almost 2000 deaths. The virus is likely a hybrid of viruses found in bats and apes that, after jumping the species barrier into humans, causes severe intestinal infection, hemorrhagic fever and in a large number of cases, eventual death. In August, two U.S. missionary doctors who became infected in Liberia were flown to a hospital in Atlanta for treatment with an experimental drug called Zmapp. The drug was created by infecting three mice with three separate strains of Ebola and then harvesting and combining the antibodies produced by the mice. The two doctors made a full recovery. Like the U.S. doctors, in late August a male nurse from the UK was also treated with Zmapp after he was flown back to the UK in a plane specially outfitted with a medical pod that seals off the patient and prevents the disease from spreading. Nurse William Pooley also made a full recovery. Dr. Rick Sacra is also being flown back to the United States in a medically outfitted plane and doctors at the special isolation ward at the Nebraska hospital he’ll be treated at say he is in a stable condition and added that a team of some 35 medical personnel will attend to Dr. Sacra’s recovery.




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