As concerns escalate regarding the possibility of the Ebola virus spreading in the US, people will be glad to know that at least two of its victims are already virus-free after receiving treatment in American soil. Medical missionaries Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly were able to walk out of Emory University Hospital in Atlanta free of the deadly virus that has already claimed hundreds of lives in Western Africa and has forced at least two of the infected countries to declare state of emergencies in the hopes of curbing the infection.
NBC News said both Writebol and Brantly received an experimental drug called ZMapp to help them recover from the disease. The news outlet however, stressed that they are not the first people who have recovered from the deadly virus, and the fact that they were given quick, immediate medical attention and are treated in the country's finest infectious disease facilities had been major factors in their recovery.
Emory Infectious Disease Unit director, Dr. Bruce Ribner, nonetheless, emphasized that there is still work needed to be done to ensure that ZMapp was the cure. He said at a press conference, "They are the very first individuals to have ever receive this agent. There is no prior experience with it, and frankly, we do not know whether it helped them, whether it made no difference, or even, theoretically, if it delayed their recovery."
On the other hand, ZMapp is still news that would be welcomed by Americans, as according to the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, hospitals and state laboratories all over the country has at least 68 Ebola scares in total in a matter of three weeks. The scares, ABC News reported, came from hospitals in 27 states, who have alerted CDC of the increase in caution regarding the virus. 58 of them were reportedly declared as false alarms, while the remaining 10 were taken blood samples and sent to CDC for testing. Seven of the ten tested negative, while the results of the three remain pending, CDC added.
On Wednesday, public health officials in California said that a Sacramento patient being tested for the deadly virus actually had a trip from one of the Western African countries, SFGate said. Although they refused to provide details citing federal health privacy laws, they said that the patient already showed symptoms of Ebola infection during the 21-day period and is in isolation at the South Sacramento medical Center. Nonetheless, they deduced the chances of the patient having an Ebola infection is slim, but are practicing an "abundance of caution" for the sake of the public.
