WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is expected to admit a US citizen who tested positive for the Ebola virus while working at a treatment centre in Sierra Leone, the NIH announced in a statement.
“The National Institutes of Health expects to admit to its hospital tomorrow an American healthcare worker who has tested positive for Ebola virus disease,” the NIH statement, issued on Thursday, said.
“The individual was volunteering services in an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone and will be transported back to the United States in isolation via a chartered aircraft,” it added.
The US citizen will be admitted to the tightly isolated Special Clinical Studies Unit (SCSU) in the Maryland-based health agency to be treated by a team of infectious disease specialists.
“The unit staff is trained in strict infection control practices optimized to prevent spread of potentially transmissible agents such as Ebola,” the NIH statement noted.
The NIH explained that access to the SCSU would be “strictly controlled,” and the US health agency was taking “every precaution” to ensure safety to its patients, staff and to the public.
Currently, Ebola has claimed the lives of some 10,004 people worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced in its latest statistical report published on Thursday.
The current Ebola endemic began in southern Guinea and later spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal and has infected a total of 24,350 people since the outbreak started last year, according to the WHO report.
There is no officially approved medication for the disease, but several countries, including Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan are currently working on developing a vaccine.
