Norway repatriates MSF doctor with Ebola

OSLO, Norway – Norway on Tuesday, October 7, repatriated a doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone while working for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), and whom the medical charity described as “in good spirits” despite the disease.

The patient – a 30-year-old woman, according to medical sources – was transported in a French air ambulance and then taken to the Oslo University Hospital, where she will remain in total isolation and receive experimental treatment.

Norway is currently trying to obtain the last available dose of the prototype ZMapp drug, senior drug official Steinar Madsen told specialised website Dagens Medisin.

Other experimental treatments, like Avigan and TKM-Ebola, have also been ordered.

“Despite the circumstances, our colleague is in good spirits,” Anne-Cecilie Kaltenborn, secetary general of Medecins Sans Frontieres Norway, told a press conference.

No details about the state of health of the director — the first Norwegian national to contract Ebola — have been revealed.

But Norwegian health ministry official Bjoern Guldvog told TV2 Nyhetskanalen that the risk of her infecting others with the tropical virus was “minimal”.

The announcement comes a day after Spain confirmed the first case of Ebola contagion outside Africa.

A nursing auxiliary at a Madrid hospital who had treated two Spanish missionaries repatriated from west Africa with Ebola, was hospitalized on Sunday after contracting the virus.

Her infection has sparked questions about how safety procedures were applied when treating the two missionaries.

Three more people were hospitalized on Tuesday in Madrid for observation.

According to Norwegian media, the MSF doctor contracted the disease in Bo, Sierra Leone’s second-largest city.

The charity is still trying to find out how she was infected, Kaltenborn said.

Some 7,500 cases have been detected in West Africa, where almost 3,500 people have died from the disease.

Ebola has caused 678 deaths in Sierra Leone, according to the country’s agriculture minister, James Sesay. – Rappler.com