Second American doctor recovers from Ebola
Washington – American doctor Rick Sacra, a 51-year-old Christian missionary who was infected with Ebola in Liberia, has recovered and was released from a US hospital on Thursday.
“I am so happy to be here with all of you today on the occasion of my release from the hospital,” he told reporters three weeks after he was evacuated for treatment at Nebraska Medical Center.
“The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has declared me safe and free of virus,” said Sacra, thanking God, his family, his medical team and those who prayed for him while he was ill.
The family physician was infected on August 29 while working in a maternity ward in Liberia, one of several West African nations that have been hit hard by the world’s largest Ebola outbreak.
Sacra, a married father of three, told reporters he thinks the infection may have occurred when he was performing a C-section on a woman who had come down with the virus.
He said although he is not an obstetrician, he was helping out because of short staffing and the absence of resources that have overwhelmed the nation as it struggles with mounting cases of Ebola.
Ebola is transmitted by close contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. The virus causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea and sometimes fatal bleeding.
The Ebola epidemic has now infected nearly 6,300 people in West Africa and killed nearly half of them, according to the World Health Organization.
Sacra was flown on September 5 to Nebraska Medical Center, where he was given an experimental drug called TKM-Ebola.
He was also given a plasma transfusion from another American doctor, Kent Brantly, who recovered from the virus earlier this year.
When Brantly was sickened with Ebola in Monrovia, he also received blood from a child who had recovered from the hemorrhagic virus, as well as a different experimental drug called ZMapp.
Global health experts have agreed that blood therapies and convalescent serums can be used to fight Ebola immediately, while safety trials begin for potential vaccines.
There is no drug or vaccine on the market to treat Ebola.
In its latest update, the UN health agency said a total of 6,263 people had been infected across five west African countries and that 2,917 had died.
Sacra said he remained optimistic throughout his illness and received excellent care.
“I feel great, except that I am extremely weak,” he said.
As part of his recovery, he has been riding an exercise bike, and is now able to manage five minutes a day.
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