(Bloomberg) — An American health-care worker volunteering in Sierra Leone tested positive for the Ebola virus and will be flown back to the U.S. for treatment.
The patient will be admitted to the U.S. National Institutes of Health's special containment facility in Bethesda, Md., the agency said Thursday. The NIH has successfully treated one other patient with Ebola at the same location.
While the Ebola virus has faded from the headlines in the U.S., it continues to ravage parts of West Africa, where total deaths from the disease have surpassed 10,000, according to the World Health Organization. That includes 3,655 in Sierra Leone, where new cases have continued to crop up around the country.
Health-care workers from the U.S. who have contracted Ebola have generally fared well on their return for treatment for the virus, which has no currently approved cure. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. They are frequently dehydrated and need intravenous fluids or oral rehydration with solutions that contain electrolytes.
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