Doc Who Treated American Is Nigeria's 2nd Ebola Case

As another stricken American prepares to arrive home
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 4, 2014 10:43 AM CDT
Doc Who Treated American Is Nigeria's 2nd Ebola Case
Women from different religious groups pray against the spread of the Ebola virus, in Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday Aug. 2, 2014.   (AP Photo/Abbas Dulleh)

The most populous country in Africa has just reported its second case of Ebola. This time, the patient is a doctor who helped to treat Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, who died of the illness last month in Nigeria. Three others who treated him are being tested for the disease, Nigeria's health minister says, per the AP. The news comes as American Nancy Writebol, a missionary infected in Liberia, is set to arrive in Atlanta tomorrow, NBC News reports.

She's headed to the same hospital as Dr. Kent Brantly, who was working with the same missionary organization. Both of them may have had their lives saved by a secret drug shipped to Nigeria last week, CNN reports, based on an insider's account. A National Institutes of Health rep offered the drug, called ZMapp, to the missionary organization. ZMapp, which had been kept in subzero conditions, hadn't been tested on humans, the patients heard. But it had apparently worked well on monkeys, and Brantly and Writebol agreed to take it. Brantly, who believed he was going to die, saw his condition "nearly reversed," CNN notes, and two doses helped Writebol. (More Ebola stories.)

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