Americans with Ebola Released from Atlanta Hospital
Published at
Hemera/Thinkstock(ATLANTA) — Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantley have been cured of the Ebola virus and released from Emory Hospital in Atlanta.
Both patients were given blood and urine tests to determine whether they still had the virus, and Writebol left the hospital Tuesday. Brantley, 33, was released Thursday.
“After a rigorous course of treatment and testing, the Emory Healthcare team has determined that both patients have recovered from the Ebola virus and can return to their families and community without concern for spreading this infection to others,” Dr. Bruce Ribner, director of Emory’s Infectious Disease Unit, said in a statement released Thursday.
Writebol’s husband said in the statement that Writebol left the hospital in a “significantly weakened condition.”
Brantly contracted the deadly virus while working in a Liberian Ebola ward with the aid agency Samaritan’s Purse. He was evacuated to the U.S. earlier this month along with Writebol.
Brantly is the first-ever Ebola patient to be treated in the U.S. and the first human to receive the experimental serum known as ZMapp.
According to reports, Brantly’s condition deteriorated so quickly that doctors in Africa decided to give him the drug in a last-ditch effort to save him.
Brantly’s condition started to improve dramatically within an hour after getting the serum, according to Samaritan’s Purse, but it’s unclear if the improvement was directly related to the medication. After his health stabilized, Brantly was evacuated on a specially outfitted plane to Atlanta in early August to the hospital isolation ward.
Writebol, 59, also survived after getting the serum.
The virus has killed at least 1,229 and sickened 1,011 more, according to numbers released Tuesday by the World Health Organization. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have the most cases.
Watch more news videos | Latest from the US
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio