American doctor, Dr. Kent Brantly, was previously infected with the Ebola virus along with health worker, Nancy Writebol, but both have survived the the potentially lethal disease after receiving the experimental drug ZMapp.
Now, Dr. Brantly has donated his blood to help in the treatment of Dr. Richard Sacra, another health worker who is now receiving treatment for the same virus at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Because he is a survivor, Brantly is now immune to the effects of this virus strain that is now causing the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa. During his treatment in Atlanta, Brantly also received a blood donation from another Ebola survivor that he was treating previously in Liberia. Brantly reportedly flew out to Nebraska to donate a unit of his blood. Luckily, the doctors' blood types matched.
Unlike Brantly and Writebol who were in the Ebola wards, Dr. Richard Sacra was working at a maternity hospital tending to pregnant women and other obstetrics cases in Liberia when he became sick. Attending physicians at the Nebraska Medical Center say that Sacra is now in stable condition and is responding well to treatment. Doctors are also optimistic that isolating the Ebola antibodies from Dr. Brantly's blood donation will be the key to treating Sacra completely. Brantly and Sacra are two of the four confirmed cases of Ebola virus in Americans since the outbreak.
The World Health Organization has already made studying the survivors' blood for the presence of antibodies one of their top priorities so that it could be used to help infected people fight the disease. Assistant director general for health systems and innovation, Marie-Paule Kieny, said that, "We agreed that whole blood therapies and convalescent serum may be used to treat Ebola virus disease and that all efforts must be invested into helping affected countries use them safely."
