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Ebola patient treated at Hamburg hospital

DPA/The Local
DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Ebola patient treated at Hamburg hospital
An isolation ambulance approaches the specially outfitted aircraft carrying the Ebola patient at Hamburg airport. Photo: DPA

UPDATE: The first patient to be treated for Ebola in Germany arrived in Hamburg on Wednesday morning.

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) epidemics expert will be treated at University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), a spokesman for the Hamburg health authorities confirmed to The Local.

The specially-equipped medical jet from Sierra Leone with the patient on board landed at Hamburg Airport shortly before 11am. The Senegalese medic was then transported in a special isolation vehicle provided by the fire service.

The man was infected while working with Ebola samples in a WHO laboratory in the stricken west African country.

GALLERY: Arrival of Germany's first ebola patient in Hamburg

The virus has infected more than 2,600 people and killed 1,427 since reemerging in west Africa this year. 

Ebola has a fatality rate of up to 90 percent according to the WHO, but during the current outbreak the survival rate has been 47 percent.

It is transmitted by direct contact with blood and body fluids.

A practice drill at Hamburg's UKE clinic. Photo: DPA

At the end of July, a medic from Sierra Leone who had contracted the disease was meant to be treated in Hamburg's UKE, but he died before he could be flown to Germany.

The clinic has an isolation ward shut off behind three airlocks designed to stop contaminated material and microbes escaping.

SEE ALSO: German hospitals ready for Ebola patients

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