NIH Upgrades Condition of American With Ebola Virus to Good

>>News Alerts: Subscribe to a free email newsletter: BETHESDA •ROCKVILLE • SILVER SPRING

An American health-care worker infected with Ebola while in Africa continues to improve at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and on Tuesday was listed in good condition.

NBCWashington reports the health-care worker had been volunteering at an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone. The man was flown to the United States on March 13 in critical condition to receive treatment at the NIH Clinical Center, the agency said in a statement.

While the patient’s name has not been released, FOX DC reports he worked since November with Partners in Health, a Boston-based charity caring for patients in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The conditions of about 40 other Americans who may have been in contact with the infected man. None had tested positive by late last week

The patient is being treated at the NIH Clinical Center’s Special Clinical Studies Unit, which offers high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by specialists in infectious diseases and critical care, the NIH said. The unit’s staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola.

The patient is the second to be treated for Ebola at NIH. Last fall, Texas nurse Nina Pham was treated there after contracting the disease while caring for Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Duncan died Oct. 8 from the infectious disease.

Two other medical professionals who were exposed to the highly infectious disease were also treated at NIH in the fall; neither developed Ebola.

The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda is one of four facilities in the United States with special isolation facilities where Ebola patients can more easily be treated. Other specialized facilities are Emory University Hospital in Atlanta; Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha; and St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, MT.

SEE ALSO:

• UPDATE: American With Ebola Virus Arrives at NIH
• Texas Nurse with Ebola Flying to NIH in Bethesda for Treatment
• Doctor Exposed to Ebola Virus Arrives in Bethesda
• Experimental Ebola Vaccine Shows Promise: Researchers