2nd American aid worker with Ebola arrives in US
August 06, 2014  04:56
An American aid worker infected with Ebola has arrived in Atlanta, joining a second patient being given an experimental treatment that has never before been tested on humans.

Nancy Writebol, 59, travelled from Monrovia, Liberia, to Emory University Hospital, just downhill from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She arrived yesterday, two days after Kent Brantly, a doctor with whom she had worked in Liberia and who also contracted Ebola, showed up for treatment.

The differences were stark in how they went from the ambulance to Emory, which has a highly specialised isolation unit. While Brantly, 33, was able to walk with assistance into the hospital, Writebol covered from head to toe in a protective suit was wheeled in on a stretcher. 

Still, the 59-year-old Writebol was described as weak but showing signs of improvement. 

"A week ago we were thinking about making funeral arrangements for Nancy," her husband, David Writebol, said in a statement read by the president of SIM USA, the aid group with which she was working in Liberia. "Now we have a real reason to be hopeful." 

Brantly and Writebol were both infected despite taking precautions as they treated Ebola patients in West Africa, where the virus has been spreading faster than governments can contain it, killing nearly 900 people so far.
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