US doctor with Ebola to be released soon

The American doctor who became ill with the Ebola virus while treating patients in Liberia will be released from a US hospital soon, a Christian aid group said Thursday.

“Dr. Kent Brantly is doing very well and hopes to be released sometime in the near future,” said a statement from Samaritan’s Purse.

It did not give any specifics on timing.

The staff at Emory University hospital in Atlanta, Georgia “are taking extremely great care of him,” the statement added.

Brantly and another American missionary, Nancy Writebol, both came down with Ebola while trying to help people in the midst of West Africa’s largest outbreak in history.

A total of 1,069 people have died and nearly 2,000 have been infected since March in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria.

Brantly, 33, and Writebol, 60, were given an experimental drug treatment and were airlifted back to the United States. Writebol is also said to be improving and is being treated at the same hospital as Brantly.

Ebola is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, and healthcare workers and family members are particularly at risk of contracting the disease.

Brantly issued a letter last week from his hospital room, recalling how he isolated himself when he began to feel sick, and how he felt watching so many victims die.

“I held the hands of countless individuals as this terrible disease took their lives away from them. I witnessed the horror firsthand, and I can still remember every face and name,” he wrote.