埃博拉病毒爆发：试用药治疗美国救援人员

Two Americans infected with the deadly Ebola virus are responding well to a new vaccine, never before used on humans. It’s also the first time that a patient with Ebola has been treated in the United States.

The death toll in Africa now stands at 887. There have been 1,600 cases, making it the biggest outbreak in history. Could Z-Mapp, a drug still in development, help to bring an end to this fatal virus? Kate Fisher reports from Washington.

"Almost miraculous". One doctor’s assessment as Kent Brantley walked into hospital in Georgia. The missionary doctor was infected with ebola as he worked with patients in Liberia. But he’s responded so well to an experimental new drug that he had no need for a stretcher as he made his way into Emory hospital - one of just four in the US which is equipped to treat patients with the deadly virus.

One of America’s leading health experts says Dr Brantley’s progress is encouraging but is urging caution.

"As we all know in medicine, as we say, n equals one, a single individual that had that experience, you note it and hope that, in fact, that’s the way it has worked, but you’ve got to withhold judgment as to whether or not that was completely related to the antibody," Director of US Nat'l Inst. of Allergy & Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci said.

"I hope it was. I’m not trying to be unduly skeptical. I hope that, in fact, that happened, but we have taken care of individuals who come in in shock and you give them antibiotic if they have an infection but also give them a lot of fluid and they get better real quickly. And what was it, the antibiotic or the fluid? We need to be careful. I do hope it was as impressive as being described, because if it is, that bodes well for that particular product."

But could that product - a serum called Z-Mapp - be developed quickly enough to help to fight the outbreak in Africa? That’s unlikely according to Anthony Fauci.

"One of the real problems with if in fact it is this product that we’re talking about is that there are very, very few doses and apparently the company is trying to scale up. it’s not easy to scale up to very large numbers of doses but that’s something that’s under intenses discussions now about how one can actually scale up so there are more doses available," Anthony Fauci said.

The special evacuation plane used to transport Dr Brantley back to the US has returned to Liberia to pick up a second patient, aid worker Nancy Writebol. Both of them will be treated in the isolation unit at Emory Hospital.

"As president Obama welcomes 50 African heads of state to town for the inaugural US Africa Leaders summit - ebola has become something of a party spoiler - bringing unwanted attention to the very kinds of stereotypes about poverty and disease that the high profile summit was meant to break.