Both U.S. health workers who were infected with Ebola in Liberia have been released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after having fought off the deadly virus.
Kent Brantly, a doctor, was discharged today. Nancy Writebol, an aid worker, was released Aug. 19, the hospital said in a statement. They had been evacuated to the U.S. for treatment and are expected to make a full recovery.
“Today is a miraculous day,” Brantly said at a news conference in Atlanta. “I am thrilled to be alive, to be well, to be reunited with my family.”
As he left the press conference to rejoin his family, he hugged many of the five doctors, 21 nurses and other hospital workers who had helped care for him and Writebol while at Emory.
“If the hugging transmitted the feeling that we don’t think he’s contagious, that would be correct,” said Bruce Ribner, the Emory University physician who led the care of both patients.
Brantly and Writebol had been receiving medical care at the Atlanta hospital since early August, after being flown in on a medical isolation jet from Liberia. Hopes had been raised for their survival after they were given an experimental treatment developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., a closely held biotechnology company based in San Diego.
‘Lot of Fear’
“Limited knowledge of the Ebola virus, especially in our country, has created a lot of fear,” Ribner said. “However, we cannot let our fears dictate our actions. We must all care. As grateful as we are today, our work is far from over.”
Brantly will be spending time with his family to “reconnect, decompress and continue to recover physically and emotionally” before sharing more about his experience with the media, he said. He didn’t say where he would be going next.
Writebol didn’t appear at today’s press conference and has been at an undisclosed location since her discharge two days ago, SIM, the missionary group she was working for in Liberia, said in a statement.
“Nancy is free of the virus, but the lingering effects of the battle have left her in a significantly weakened condition,” her husband, David Writebol, said in a statement. “Thus, we decided it would be best to leave the hospital privately to be able to give her the rest and recuperation she needs at this time.”
Expressing Gratitude
Brantly said Writebol asked that he share with the public her gratitude.
“As she walked out of her isolation room, all she could say was, ‘To God be the glory,’” Brantly said.
The decision to release the patients was based on guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that call for a patient to have no virus in their blood and to have improved symptoms for two to three days, Ribner said. The patients will continue to receive follow-up care, he said.
It’s not known whether the experimental treatment from Mapp that both patients received, or a blood transfusion given to Brantly from a 14-year-old survivor played a role their recovery, Ribner said. Ribner said the outcome for both patients was improved by the supportive care they were able to get at Emory, such as the replacement of fluids and electrolytes and monitoring their blood for clotting.
Better Results
“Because we have the infrastructure our colleagues in Liberia don’t have, we have always had a strong feeling the mortality rate of around 50 percent or so wouldn’t be our experience,” said Ribner.
He said Emory is putting together guidelines on what they learned from caring for the two patients that could be shared with health-care workers in Africa.
The World Health Organization has declared Ebola an international public health emergency. As of Aug. 18, the virus has killed 1,350 people in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone since the outbreak started in December, according to the Geneva-based agency. That makes it the worst Ebola epidemic on record. It’s the first time the disease has appeared in West Africa.
The international response to the Ebola outbreak, criticized as being too slow, has since intensified. Quarantine measures in the area where Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia meet have inflicted “extreme hardship” on more than 1 million people but are essential to contain the spread of the virus, Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director general, wrote yesterday in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine.
‘Many’ Months
“No one is talking about an early end to the outbreak,” Chan wrote. “The international community will need to gear up for many more months of massive, coordinated, and targeted assistance.”
The Ebola virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids from an infected person. The virus causes fever, diarrhea, muscle pain, vomiting and, as it progresses, bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose.
There is no approved cure. Standard treatment is to keep patients hydrated, replace lost blood and use antibiotics to fight off opportunistic infections. The goal is for the body’s immune system to eventually beat the disease.
Ebola has historically killed as many as 90 percent of those who contract it, with most patients dying from multiple organ failure. The current outbreak has claimed the lives of about 55 percent of its victims.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.