Aid Worker Stricken with Ebola Arrives in US
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - An aid worker infected with the deadly Ebola virus while in Liberia arrived at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in the US state of Georgia from West Africa.
Doctor Kent Brantly landed shortly before noon (16:00 GMT) on Saturday aboard a private air ambulance and was whisked to a state-of-the-art hospital isolation unit.
Brantly, the country's first Ebola patient, is one of two US aid workers infected with the virus as they helped to battle an outbreak that has claimed more than 700 lives in West Africa since March.
Wearing a bio-hazard suit, Brantly was driven by ambulance, with police escort, to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment in a specially equipped room.
Television news footage showed three people in white biohazard suits stepping out of the ambulance. Two of them walked into the hospital, one seeming to lean on the other for support.
A hospital spokesman confirmed that Brantly walked into the building under his own power, Reuters reported.
Dr Jay Varkey, an infectious disease specialist at Emory, said he could not comment on a treatment plan until Brantly had been evaluated.
Since there is no known cure, standard procedures are to provide hydration with solutions containing electrolytes or intravenous fluids, according to the World Health Organisation.
Brantly, a 33-year-old father of two young children, works for the North Carolina-based Christian organisation Samaritan's Purse.
A second infected member of the group, missionary Nancy Writebol who is a 59-year-old mother of two, will be brought to the US on a later flight, as the medical aircraft is equipped to carry only one patient at a time.