One of Liberia's most high-profile doctors has died of Ebola, a
government official said Sunday, and two American aid workers at a
hospital in the West African country have been infected,
highlighting the risks facing health workers trying to combat the
spread of the deadly virus.
Samuel Brisbane is the first Liberian doctor to die in an
outbreak the World Health Organization says has killed 129 people
in Liberia, and more than 670 in several West African countries.
The WHO confirmed that the Liberian ministry of health had informed
the organization that Dr. Brisbane had died. A Ugandan doctor
working in the country died this month.
The WHO says the outbreak, the largest yet recorded, has also
killed 319 people in Guinea and 224 in Sierra Leone. As of July 23,
the total number of cases in the three countries was 1,201, it
said.
In Nigeria, officials said on Friday that a Liberian official
had died of Ebola after flying from Monrovia to Lagos, Nigeria, via
Lome, Togo, the Associated Press reported. The case underscored the
difficulty of preventing Ebola victims from traveling given weak
screening systems and the fact that the initial symptoms of the
disease--including fever and sore throat--resemble those of many
other illnesses.
Health workers are at serious risk of contracting the disease,
which spreads through contact with bodily fluids. The WHO says the
disease isn't contagious until a person begins to show
symptoms.
Kent Brantly, an American doctor helping respond to the outbreak
in Liberia, is receiving intensive medical treatment there after he
was infected with the Ebola virus, a spokeswoman for aid
organization Samaritan's Purse said, according to the AP. Dr.
Brantly was in stable condition, talking with his doctors and
working on his computer while receiving care, she said. Dr. Brantly
is medical director for the Samaritan's Purse Ebola Consolidated
Case Management Center in Monrovia.
American aid worker Nancy Writebol tested positive at the same
medical compound, said Ken Isaacs, of Samaritan's Purse, according
to the AP. Ms. Writebol also was in stable condition and receiving
intensive treatment, he said.
"It's been a shock to everyone on our team to have two of our
players get pounded with the disease," Mr. Isaacs said, the AP
reported. Ms. Writebol had been working as a hygienist who
decontaminated those entering and leaving the hospital's Ebola care
area, he said.
This year, Dr. Brantly was quoted on the dangers facing health
workers trying to contain the disease. "In past Ebola outbreaks,
many of the casualties have been health-care workers who contracted
the disease through their work caring for infected individuals," he
said.
Sierra Leone's top Ebola doctor also fell ill with the disease
last week, though the country's chief medical officer, Brima
Kargbo, said on Sunday that he was "fairly stable and responding
well to treatment."
Dr. Brisbane, who once served as a medical adviser to former
Liberian President Charles Taylor, was working as a consultant with
the internal medicine unit at the country's largest hospital, the
John F. Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in Monrovia.
After falling ill with Ebola, he was taken to a treatment center
on the outskirts of the capital, where he died, said Tolbert
Nyenswah, an assistant health minister quoted by the AP. Under the
supervision of health workers, family members escorted the doctor's
body to a burial location west of the city, Mr. Nyenswah said.
Another doctor who had been working in Liberia's central Bong
County was also being treated for Ebola at the same center where
Dr. Brisbane died, Mr. Nyenswah said, adding that the situation "is
getting more and more scary."
News of Dr. Brisbane's death first began circulating on
Saturday, a national holiday marking Liberia's independence in
1847.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf used her Independence
Day address to discuss a new task force to combat Ebola.
Information Minister Lewis Brown said the task force would go "from
community to community, from village to village, from town to town"
to increase awareness.
That a sick Liberian was able to board a flight to Nigeria
raised new fears that other passengers could take the disease
beyond Africa.
Nigeria's international airports were screening passengers
arriving from foreign countries, and health officials were also
working with ports and land borders to raise awareness of the
disease.
Togo's government said it was on high alert.
Some security analysts said they were skeptical about the
usefulness of these measures, however.
"In Nigeria's case, the security setup is currently bad, so I
doubt it will help or have the minimum effectiveness they are
hoping for," said Yan St. Pierre, chief executive of Berlin-based
security consulting firm Mosecon.
An outbreak in Lagos, a megacity where many lived in cramped
conditions, could be a public-health disaster.
There is no known cure for Ebola. The West Africa outbreak is
believed to have begun as far back as January in southeast Guinea,
though the first cases weren't confirmed until March.
Since then, officials have tried to contain the disease by
isolating victims and educating populations on how to avoid
transmission. But porous borders, satellite outbreaks and
widespread distrust of health workers have made the outbreak
difficult to bring under control.
In Sierra Leone, which has recorded the highest number of new
cases in recent days, the first case originating in Freetown, the
capital, came when a hairdresser named Saudata Koroma fell ill. She
was forcibly removed from a government hospital by her family,
sparking a frantic search that ended Friday. Dr. Kargbo, the
country's chief medical officer, said Sunday that