(Updates with United Nations comments in 14th paragraph.)
Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- A third U.S. missionary working in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola, and is now in an isolation unit in that country.
The group SIM USA said today that one of its doctors was infected while treating obstetric patients in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital city. The doctor isolated himself when he first had symptoms, according to a statement from the group.
Nancy Writebol, an aid worker with SIM, was one of two Americans who were flown to Atlanta, treated and released last month after being similarly infected in Liberia. The other was Kent Brantly, a missionary doctor with Samaritan’s Purse, another North Carolina-based aid organization.
“My heart was deeply saddened, but my faith was not shaken, when I learned another of our missionary doctors contracted Ebola,” Bruce Johnson, president of Charlotte-based SIM USA, said in the statement.
The statement didn’t identify the doctor, or say whether he would be returned to the U.S. for treatment. It also didn’t specify what type of treatment he might receive. The missionary group has scheduled a news conference for tomorrow.
Writebol and Brantly received an experimental treatment developed by San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. before being moved to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. There they received standard care that includes hydration, replacing lost blood and using antibiotics to fight opportunistic infections, doctors said.
While Mapp has since said its supply of the drug is exhausted, the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority today said it will contract with Mapp to provide $24.9 million to support the development and manufacturing of the medication, known as ZMapp.
First Involvement
This is the agency’s first involvement in the development of a product to treat viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever, according to the statement by the group, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A study of ZMapp published in the journal Nature Aug. 29 showed monkeys infected with Ebola survived after being treated with the drug. All 18 monkeys given the medicine lived, while three that weren’t treated died.
The current Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria had sickened more than 3,000 people, killing 1,552 as of Aug. 26, according to the World Health Organization. The number of people falling ill is accelerating, with more than 40 percent of the infections happening in the past 21 days, the WHO said last week.
Also today, Tom Frieden, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he believed the outbreak will get worse.
‘Increasing Rapidly’
“The bottom line is that despite tremendous efforts from the U.S. government, the CDC, from within countries, the number of cases continues to increase and is increasing rapidly,” said Frieden, who just returned from a trip to West Africa, in a conference call with reporters. “I’m afraid that over the next few weeks those numbers will continue to increase.”
David Nabarro, the United Nations coordinator for Ebola, echoed Frieden’s comments.
“The outbreak is worse,” Nabarro told reporters today in New York. “The outbreak, it is is accelerating before us. It is truly important that our response is much stronger. We must do a surge or scaling up of the response, several times, and for that I want to emphasize the importance of accelerating the response within the next two to three weeks.”
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan criticized travel bans on the affected countries and urged governments hosting international events such as the United Nations General Assembly later this month in New York, to exercise “appropriate, respectful entry checks.”
--With assistance from Cynthia Koons in New York and Sangwon Yoon in Sydney.