A doctor from the US has tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus, after working with some patients at a Christian Hospital in Monrovia on Tuesday.
The doctor, who has not been named by the Missionary Hospital, was supposedly treating some obstetrics patients, before he started showing symptoms of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). However, it has not quite been determined, how the doctor contracted this deadly disease.
"The doctor is doing well and is in good spirits," said SIM, in a press release.
The doctor was working for a Christian missionary called SIM at their ELWA Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, where he contracted the disease. As soon as he displayed symptoms of the Ebola virus, he immediately transferred himself in an Ebola Isolation Unit, at the ELWA Hospital.
"My heart was deeply saddened, but my faith was not shaken, when I learned another of our missionary doctors contracted Ebola," said Bruce Johnson, the president of SIM, USA. "As a global mission, we are surrounding our missionary with prayer, as well as our Liberian SIM/ELWA colleagues, who continue fighting the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. We have gifted Liberian doctors, medical staff and support staff who are carrying on the fight."
Previously, another health worker, Nancy Writebol from SIM, USA, had contracted the disease while she was working with some sick people in Liberia. A US doctor named Kent Brantly had also contracted the disease. Both of them were given the ZMapp, an experimental Ebola vaccine, which seems to have cured them, as they were recently released.
The US government had donated a number of these vaccines to the West African countries, to treat their sick. However, the number of vaccines developed by the US was too negligible, when compared to the number of people who had contracted the disease, and the number of people who were dying from it.
The West Africa outbreak is the worst recorded outbreak of the Ebola virus, known to mankind. More than 1,550 people have died due to the virus, while over 3,000 people are reported to have contracted the disease, in the four West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. The official number of people who had contracted the disease, would be considerably lower, because people fear going to the hospitals, which they think is a death sentence. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that the actual number of people who had contracted the disease could well be as high as 20,000.
Reports suggest that around 10 per cent of the people, who had contracted the virus in West Africa, were doctors or healthcare workers, who were not provided with the proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), required for health workers to avoid contracting the disease themselves.
