Ebola patient in Germany in serious condition

Frankfurt: Condition of Ebola patient is critical

04/10/2014

The second Ebola patient being treated in Germany, „is in very serious condition“. The Ugandan doctor had worked in Sierra Leone for an Italian aid organization and got infected. Experimental drugs would not be used. The patient's Ebola symptoms are treated at the clinic in Frankfurt.

patient „in very serious condition“

The second Ebola patient, who is being treated in Germany, was admitted to the University Hospital Frankfurt on Friday. The Ugandan doctor had been working for an Italian aid organization in Sierra Leone, apparently infected with Ebola. The physician had been taken to Frankfurt with an air ambulance, where he is being treated at the isolation ward of the university hospital. According to a news agency dpa news agency, senior physician Timo Wolf said on Friday: „The patient is in very serious condition, but stable at least until now in this condition.“

Symptoms of the patient are treated

But it insists „well justified hope that the patient can survive this disease well“. First, the next days would have to wait. As further communicated, no experimental drugs are currently used. The physicians provide the patient with fluid and treat the Ebola symptoms. Typical symptoms that can occur in this infectious disease include fever, diarrhea, nausea and internal and external bleeding. The therapy also includes the support of, for example, circulation or breathing.

Strict security measures

The patient had spent the flight to Germany in an incubation tent. As the head of the Competence Center Frankfurt, Professor René Gottschalk, said that although the infected person was very exhausted after the flight, he had weathered it well in the circumstances. The patient was brought under strict safety precautions with a special vehicle in the clinic, whose isolation station, among other things, has its own air supply. Through the World Health Organization (WHO), the Italian aid organization approached the Foreign Office with a request for help. The costs would be borne by the aid organization. Hesse health minister Stefan Grüttner (CDU) has shown the willingness to accept more Ebola patients.

Already over 3,400 dead by Ebola in West Africa

A first Ebola patient from West Africa had already come to Germany at the end of August. The WHO expert is cared for at the University Hospital in Hamburg. Because the hospital is bound by medical confidentiality and the patient is loud „Time online“ All information is prohibited, nothing is known about his condition. According to the latest WHO data, the number of registered Ebola deaths has continued to rise to 3,431. Liberia is hit hardest by the epidemic. 2,069 people died of Ebola in the country. The number of registered infected people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is currently reported at 7,470. (Ad)