The first Ebola victim brought to the United States from Africa arrived in Atlanta, Ga., Saturday amid hysteria and outrage from some Americans concerned that the deadly disease could escape an isolation unit at one of the nation’s top hospitals and spread, the Associated Press reports.
Dr. Kent Brantly, a missionary doctor who was infected in Liberia, is being treated at an isolation unit for infectious diseases at Emory University Hospital, the AP writes.
He arrived amid concern from some critics that the deadly disease, which has killed more than 700 people in Africa, could spread in the U.S., the report says. “But infectious disease experts said the public faces zero risk,” the AP writes.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Associated Press Saturday that the agency has received "nasty emails" and at least 100 calls from people saying: “‘How dare you bring Ebola into the country!?’ I hope that our understandable fear of the unfamiliar does not trump our compassion when ill Americans return to the U.S. for care,’” he told the AP.
Nancy Writebol, a charity worker also infected in Liberia, is slated to arrive at Emoroy in several days, the news site reports. The isolation unit for infectious diseases was created 12 years ago to treat doctors who get sick at the CDC, the report says.
“It is one of about four in the country, equipped with everything necessary to test and treat people exposed to very dangerous viruses,” the AP writes. Doctors at the unit in 2005 treated patients with SARS, which unlike Ebola can spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes, the news site says.
Read more at the Associated Press.