Brave Texas doc defies furious protest to treat Ebola-stricken victims. PLUS: Is EBOLA the new BUBONIC PLAGUE ?!
A stunning act of selflessness by a Texas doctor treating Ebola victims in Liberia has touched off a furious protest on social media by frightened Americans.
Fort Worth’s Dr. Kent Brantly, 33, was treating victims of the disease in the stricken West African nation when he was infected. But he turned down a potentially life-saving serum, insisting it go to a fellow relief worker, Nancy Writebol, after she was infected as well.
As their lives hung in the balance, their return to the U.S. for treatment sparked outrage from those who feared Brantly might bring the killer disease back home with him.
Real estate mogul Donald Trump tweeted: “Ebola patient will be brought to the U.S. in a few days – now I know for sure that our leaders are incompetent.
“KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!”
Brantly and Writebol, 60, are the first Americans known to have contracted the virus. So far it’s infected 1,200 people in the region, killing an estimated 729 victims. It is known to kill up to 90 percent of its victims and has no known cure.
A medical charter flight with a biological containment system was dispatched to transport them home. While U.S. officials remain silent, Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital has confirmed that at least one of them, now listed in “grave condition,” will be brought to a special isolation unit there.
Sadly, the conditions of both Brantly and Writebol have declined. The brave physician had been treating infected Liberians as medical director of the hospital in Monrovia, while Writebol, a missionary and hygienist, decontaminated patients entering or leaving the isolation ward.
Luckily, Brantly’s wife, Amber, and their two kids had returned to the U.S. before he displayed any symptoms.
But a torrent of hostile tweets suggests neither is welcome back…dead or alive. “As much as I respect the workers with Ebola,” posted a protester, “I really don’t want it anywhere near the U.S.”
Plus: IS EBOLA TODAY’S BUBONIC PLAGUE?
Ebola – the killer virus terrifying the world – was first detected in parts of Africa nearly four decades ago.
The World Health Organization (WHO), which works to contain the spread of devastating diseases, labeled it “a severe, often fatal illness” after it appeared in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976.
The mysterious disease is transmitted via bodily fluids and can be contracted easily by coming into contact with a victim’s sweat.
Symptoms, including fever, muscle pain and sore throat, rapidly escalate to vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding.
There is no vaccine or cure, and treating patients requires biohazard protection.
The WHO has designated the current outbreak of the disease the largest ever recorded. It had previously erupted in other African nations, including Uganda in 2000–2001 when 425 people were affected and 224 died.
