Ebola-infected doctor may leave Sierra Leone for treatment in US

Nine people have been treated for the killer virus in the US, but only one - Liberian-born Thomas Eric Duncan - has died from the disease on US soil.

A doctor from Sierra Leone with United States residency infected with Ebola may travel to the US to be treated for the deadly virus, medical officials say.

The man was in Sierra Leone when he became sick, said a spokesperson from the Nebraska Medical Centre in Omaha, where he could be treated.

"This patient contracted the disease in Sierra Leone and [has] tested positive for Ebola," the hospital said.

The Nebraska Medical Centre's biocontainment unit is one of only a handful of hospitals in the US with facilities to treat Ebola.

Officials said he "will soon be evaluated for possible treatment of the disease here".

The man is currently in Sierra Leone, and a jet will fly to the West African nation to transport him to the US if he is well enough to travel.

Nine people have been treated for the killer virus in the US, but only one - Liberian-born Thomas Eric Duncan - has died from the disease on US soil.

The aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres is to begin a series of clinical trials of drugs and other potential cures for Ebola patients in West Africa.

The agency will use three of its network of treatment centres in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to carry out testing of drugs and blood products that scientists are developing to fight the virus.

Clinicians would not normally carry out such trials during a humanitarian crisis, but they say the scale of the outbreak is so serious there is no choice.

One of the trials is being conducted by staff from Oxford University, who are using the antiviral drug brincidofovir, which inhibits the ability of a virus to multiply.

In Gueckedou in Guinea, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research will experiment with another antiviral drug, favipiravir.

Another trial, conducted by the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine in the Guinean capital, Conakry, will take place using blood and plasma products developed from the blood of Ebola survivors.

- AFP