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.
Kent Brantly, an American doctor helping respond to the outbreak in Liberia, is also receiving intensive medical treatment 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.
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.
There is no known cure for Ebola, which begins with symptoms including fever and sore throat and escalates to vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding.
The WHO says the disease is not contagious until a person begins to show symptoms. Brantly’s wife and children had been living with him in Liberia but flew home to the U.S. about a week ago, before the doctor started showing any signs of illness, Strickland said.
“They have absolutely shown no symptoms,” she said.
A woman who identified herself as Brantly’s mother said the family was declining immediate comment when reached by phone in Indiana.
Besides Brantly and the two doctors in Liberia, Sierra Leone’s top Ebola doctor and a doctor in Liberia’s central Bong County have also fallen ill.
The situation “is getting more and more scary,” said Nyenswah, the country’s assistant health minister.
Health workers are at serious risk of contracting the disease, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids.