Dr. Kent Brantly, one of the American aid workers, infected with the Ebola virus, arrived in the United States on Saturday and will start treatment soon.
Brantly was working in Liberia where he got exposed to the deadly virus. He was flown back to the United States through a chartered medical aircraft and was seen wearing a bio-hazard suit. The aircraft touched down at the Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia. He was then transported to the Emory University Hospital in Atlanta where he will begin treatment for the infection, Reuters reported.
The doctor was a member of the Samaritan's Purse, a North Carolina-based Christian organization that worked with communities in West Africa. Another member of the group, Nancy Writebol, was also exposed to the virus and will also return to the United States on a separate private flight.
Concern among public groups heightened due to the entry of an Ebola patient in the country, but health officials assured them that there will be no threat to the public's health. The facility located at Emory was built by the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention and is specially designed to handle Ebola patients.
"We have a specially designed unit, which is highly contained. We have highly trained personnel who know how to safely enter the room of a patient who requires this form of isolation," Bruce Ribner, an infectious disease specialist at Emory told Reuters.
According to the latest report of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ebola virus death toll has already reached 729 people across Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, with a mortality rate of 90 percent.
The Independent reported that the United States is already developing a vaccine against the Ebola virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Health, said that they plan to test the vaccine in mid-September once it becomes successful on monkeys.
