It was nearly three weeks ago when American missionary doctor Kent Brantly, who contracted Ebola treating victims of the deadly virus in Liberia, was brought to Atlanta's Emory University Hospital. Today, following a treatment with an experiment drug ZMapp made by Mapp Biopharma, it appears that Brantley has recovered enough that he will be discharged later on Thursday.
According to Reuters [3], Emory University Hospital said it would hold a news conference to discuss Brantly's case and that of a second American, Nancy Writebol, being treated there with ZMapp. Mapp says its supplies of the drug have been exhausted. However, it is unclear if it was the ZMapp treatment that may have cured Brantley: as Bloomberg notes [4], Brantly had also received a blood transfusion from a 14-year-old survivor, according to Samaritan’s Purse. In any event, this is surely welcome news if not so much to the world, then certainly to west Africa, where the epidemic is raging at an unprecedented pace and claiming a record number of victims.
Brantly will leave Emory hospital after the news conference, a spokesperson for the charity Samaritan's Purse said. "I have marveled at Dr. Brantly's courageous spirit as he has fought this horrible virus with the help of the highly competent and caring staff at Emory University Hospital," Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham said in a statement.
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that 2,473 people have been infected and 1,350 have died since the Ebola outbreak was identified in remote southeastern Guinea in March.
So far, the WHO has said that no cases of the disease had been confirmed outside of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria - the countries affected by the outbreak - despite cases having been suspected elsewhere, which could include the second largest African country, the 60+ million populous Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Togo, which revealed on Thursday that two suspected cases, including a sailor from the Philippines, were being tested for the virus.
Three African doctors, also treated with ZMapp in Liberia, have shown remakable signs of improvement, Liberia's Information Minister Lewis Brown told Reuters on Tuesday.
