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Who approved this, wanna guess? I wish them well, BUT if there is no danger, they should have been brought to the White House first. What the He11 are we doing trying to save the world?
The first of two American aid workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus while in Liberia arrived in the United States Saturday morning.
A chartered medical aircraft carrying Dr. Kent Brantly touched down at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, shortly before noon. Brantly was driven by ambulance, with police escort, to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment in a specially equipped room.
Television news footage showed the ambulance stop outside the hospital, and three people in white biohazard suits stepped gingerly out of the vehicle.
Two of them walked into the building, one seeming to lean on the other for support. A hospital spokesman confirmed that Brantly walked into the building under his own power.
This marks the first time a human case of Ebola virus has been present in the United States. A previous outbreak of an Ebola virus strain did occur in a commercial monkey house in Reston, Virginia in 1989. That particular strain of the disease, now named Ebola Reston, did not make the jump to human carriers.
Dr. Jay Varkey, an infectious disease specialist at Emory, said he could not comment on a treatment plan until Brantly had been evaluated. Since there is no known cure, standard procedures, according to the World Health Organization, are to provide hydration with solutions containing electrolytes or intravenous fluids.
Brantly works for the North Carolina-based Christian organization Samaritan's Purse. A second infected member of the group, missionary Nancy Writebol, will be brought to the United States on a later flight, as the medical aircraft is equipped to carry only one patient at a time.
Despite alarm by some in the United States over the transport, health officials have said bringing the sickened aid workers into the country would not put the American public at risk.
"There is a little bit of worry," Jenny Kendrix, 46, said of having the Ebola virus patient brought to the same hospital where her husband was being treated for cancer. "There is worry about it getting out."
But 52-year-old Ernie Surunis of Columbus, Mississippi, at the hospital for a pharmacy conference, said he was not bothered at all.
"This is a good hospital. I'm glad (the patients) are coming. We can't leave them (in Africa) to die. They went over to help other people," he said.
The facility at Emory, set up with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is one of only four in the country and is physically separate from other patient areas, providing a high level of clinical isolation.
"We have a specially designed unit, which is highly contained. We have highly trained personnel who know how to safely enter the room of a patient who requires this form of isolation," Bruce Ribner, an infectious disease specialist at Emory, told a news conference on Friday.
Ribner said he hoped the medical support available at Emory could improve the chances of survival from that seen on the ground in West Africa.
Worst outbreak on record
The patients were helping respond to the worst West African Ebola outbreak on record with the North Carolina-based Christian organization Samaritan's Purse and missionary group SIM USA when they contracted the disease. Since February, more than 700 people in the region have died from the infection.
The hemorrhagic virus can kill up to 90 percent of those who become infected, and the fatality rate in the current epidemic is about 60 percent.
Brantly, a 33-year-old father of two young children, and Writebol, a 59-year-old mother of two, will each arrive at Dobbins Air Reserve Base outside Atlanta before being transported to Emory, officials at the Pentagon and the hospital said.
The two will be treated primarily by a team of four infectious disease physicians. The workers will be able to see loved ones through a plate glass window and speak to those outside their rooms by phone or intercom.
Samaritan's Purse and SIM said they were sending 60 healthy U.S. staff and family members home from Liberia by this weekend as well.
The first of two American aid workers infected with the deadly Ebola virus while in Liberia arrived in the United States Saturday morning.
A chartered medical aircraft carrying Dr. Kent Brantly touched down at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, shortly before noon. Brantly was driven by ambulance, with police escort, to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment in a specially equipped room.
Television news footage showed the ambulance stop outside the hospital, and three people in white biohazard suits stepped gingerly out of the vehicle.
Two of them walked into the building, one seeming to lean on the other for support. A hospital spokesman confirmed that Brantly walked into the building under his own power.
This marks the first time a human case of Ebola virus has been present in the United States. A previous outbreak of an Ebola virus strain did occur in a commercial monkey house in Reston, Virginia in 1989. That particular strain of the disease, now named Ebola Reston, did not make the jump to human carriers.
Dr. Jay Varkey, an infectious disease specialist at Emory, said he could not comment on a treatment plan until Brantly had been evaluated. Since there is no known cure, standard procedures, according to the World Health Organization, are to provide hydration with solutions containing electrolytes or intravenous fluids.
Brantly works for the North Carolina-based Christian organization Samaritan's Purse. A second infected member of the group, missionary Nancy Writebol, will be brought to the United States on a later flight, as the medical aircraft is equipped to carry only one patient at a time.
Despite alarm by some in the United States over the transport, health officials have said bringing the sickened aid workers into the country would not put the American public at risk.
"There is a little bit of worry," Jenny Kendrix, 46, said of having the Ebola virus patient brought to the same hospital where her husband was being treated for cancer. "There is worry about it getting out."
But 52-year-old Ernie Surunis of Columbus, Mississippi, at the hospital for a pharmacy conference, said he was not bothered at all.
"This is a good hospital. I'm glad (the patients) are coming. We can't leave them (in Africa) to die. They went over to help other people," he said.
The facility at Emory, set up with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is one of only four in the country and is physically separate from other patient areas, providing a high level of clinical isolation.
"We have a specially designed unit, which is highly contained. We have highly trained personnel who know how to safely enter the room of a patient who requires this form of isolation," Bruce Ribner, an infectious disease specialist at Emory, told a news conference on Friday.
Ribner said he hoped the medical support available at Emory could improve the chances of survival from that seen on the ground in West Africa.
Worst outbreak on record
The patients were helping respond to the worst West African Ebola outbreak on record with the North Carolina-based Christian organization Samaritan's Purse and missionary group SIM USA when they contracted the disease. Since February, more than 700 people in the region have died from the infection.
The hemorrhagic virus can kill up to 90 percent of those who become infected, and the fatality rate in the current epidemic is about 60 percent.
Brantly, a 33-year-old father of two young children, and Writebol, a 59-year-old mother of two, will each arrive at Dobbins Air Reserve Base outside Atlanta before being transported to Emory, officials at the Pentagon and the hospital said.
The two will be treated primarily by a team of four infectious disease physicians. The workers will be able to see loved ones through a plate glass window and speak to those outside their rooms by phone or intercom.
Samaritan's Purse and SIM said they were sending 60 healthy U.S. staff and family members home from Liberia by this weekend as well.
AV, talk to us some more.
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