The decision to bring home Kent Brantly, an American doctor who contracted the infectious and deadly Ebola virus while helping infected patients in Liberia, was met with criticisms by many Americans, some of whom fear that the presence of Ebola patients in the U.S. poses risks of the disease spreading in the country.
It appears though that efforts to improve the chances of Brantly surviving from the disease by getting him treated in an Atlanta hospital are not a failure. In a statement released on Friday, Brantly himself said that he is getting stronger every day.
"I am growing stronger every day," said the 33-year-old physician who works for the relief organization Samaritan's Purse's Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia, Liberia when he got infected with the hemorrhagic fever that now affects Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Nigeria in West Africa.
In his statement, which Brantly wrote from his isolation room at the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, one of the four facilities in the country that are equipped to cater to patients that were exposed to dangerous pathogens as deadly as the Ebola and SARS, the doctor extended his thanks to the people who have been praying for his recovery and the recovery of Nancy Writebol, the 59-year-old American missionary who also contracted the disease in Liberia, and the people in West Africa.
"I am writing this update from my isolation room at Emory University Hospital, where the doctors and nurses are providing the very best care possible," Brantly wrote. "I am growing stronger every day, and I thank God for His mercy as I have wrestled with this terrible disease."
Brantly became the first Ebola patient treated in the U.S. when he arrived in the U.S. via a small medical aircraft last Saturday. He was followed by Writebol, who arrived in the U.S. on Tuesday. The two contracted the disease while working with missionary groups in West Africa, which is currently ravaged by what the World Health Organization (WHO) described as the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
As of August 8, figures from WHO show that 1,779 individuals already contracted the Ebola virus since it emerged earlier this year. Of these patients, 961 died of the disease. No treatment is yet available for the Ebola virus but WHO said that it will meet with a panel of medical ethics experts on Aug. 11 to explore the possibility of using experimental treatments in this outbreak.
