Accessibility links

Breaking News

WHO Worker Arrives in Germany for Ebola Treatment


An ambulance carrying onboard a patient infected with the Ebola virus arrivres at the Universitaetsklinikum Hamburg Eppendorf (UKE) university hospital in Hamburg, northern Germany, August 27, 2014.
An ambulance carrying onboard a patient infected with the Ebola virus arrivres at the Universitaetsklinikum Hamburg Eppendorf (UKE) university hospital in Hamburg, northern Germany, August 27, 2014.

A World Health Organization worker infected with Ebola has arrived in Germany for treatment.

The Senegalese epidemiologist was flown to Hamburg on Wednesday after contracting the virus from an Ebola testing lab in Sierra Leone.

After the infection, the WHO said Tuesday it had shut the lab in Kailahun and withdrawn its staff.

Ebola has killed more than 1,400 people and sickened at least 2,600 in West Africa since the outbreak began in March.

Among the worst affected countries are Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, where the government has sealed off an entire slum in the capital Monrovia.

In Liberia, where the highest number of deaths has been reported, some government officials are fleeing the country or just not reporting for work. The situation drove President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Tuesday to order all ministers to return to work. Liberian officials said several ministers who defied the order had been fired.

The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Tom Frieden, offered a cautionary assessment of the outbreak while meeting with officials in Liberia. Frieden will also stop in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

  • 16x9 Image

    VOA News

    The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.

XS
SM
MD
LG