American who contracted Ebola now in critical condition

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) – An American health care worker who contracted Ebola while volunteering in a Sierra Leone treatment unit has been downgraded to critical condition at the National Institutes of Health, doctors said Monday.

The agency said in a statement that the patient’s status was changed from serious condition to critical condition, meaning the person’s condition has apparently worsened. The patient is being treated at the National Institutes of Health’s hospital near Washington.

The patient was flown in isolation from Sierra Leone on a chartered plane last week and arrived early Friday morning. The patient’s name, age and gender have not been released.

The person is a clinician working with Partners in Health, a Boston-based nonprofit organization. The group has been treating patients in Liberia and Sierra Leone since November.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman said that besides the patient at NIH, there are 11 other Partners in Health workers being brought to the United States for monitoring. That includes four going to Atlanta to be near Emory University Hospital; one arrived Friday. On Saturday, four health care workers arrived at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, and three arrived in the Washington area on Sunday to be near the NIH campus in Bethesda. Those workers did not contract Ebola but may have been exposed.

The National Institutes of Health said it has no other pending admissions of additional patients with the Ebola virus or who have been exposed to Ebola.

CDC workers in Sierra Leone are involved in investigating the illness of the first patient, including looking for other people the person was in contact with. It’s possible other people will be transported to the United States for monitoring, said the spokesman, Tom Skinner.