A second American aid worker in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola, according to the Christian humanitarian group she works for.
Nancy Writebol is employed by Serving in Mission, or SIM, in Liberia and was helping the joint SIM/Samaritan’s Purse team that is treating Ebola patients in Monrovia, according to a Samaritan’s Purse statement.
Writebol, who serves as SIM’s personnel coordinator, has been living in Monrovia with her husband, David, according to SIM’s website. The Charlotte, North Carolina, residents have been in Liberia since August 2013, according to the blog Writebols2Liberia. They have two adult children.
On Saturday, Samaritan’s Purse announced that American doctor Kent Brantly had become infected. The 33-year-old former Indianapolis resident had been treating Ebola patients in Monrovia and started feeling ill, spokeswoman Melissa Strickland said. Once he started noticing the symptoms last week, Brantly isolated himself.
Brantly, the medical director for Samaritan Purse’s Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia, has been in the country since October, Strickland said.
“When the Ebola outbreak hit, he took on responsibilities with our Ebola direct clinical treatment response, but he was serving in a missionary hospital in Liberia prior to his work with Ebola patients,” she said.
Another doctor infected
Confirmation of the death in Lagos came after news that a doctor who has played a key role in fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is infected with the disease, according to that country’s Ministry of Health.
Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan is being treated by the French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres — also known as Doctors Without Borders — in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, agency spokesman Tim Shenk said.
Before falling ill, Khan had been overseeing Ebola treatment and isolation units at Kenema Government Hospital, about 185 miles east of the capital, Freetown.
-CNN