An American healthcare worker infected with Ebola has been downgraded from serious to critical condition, hospital officials announced Monday.
The patient was admitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, Friday morning.
The patient had been volunteering at an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone when he or she contracted the disease. The patient was flown to the United States on a chartered flight and then traveled to the hospital's Special Clinical Studies Unit (SCSU) via private charter medevac.
The patient's name, age and gender were not released. No further details about the patient's condition were released.
The NIH Clinical Center's Special Clinical Studies Unit (SCSU) is designed for high-level isolation capabilities and is staffed by specialists in infectious diseases and critical care, the NIH said.
The person is the second to be treated for Ebola at NIH. Last fall, Texas nurse Nina Pham was treated there after contracting the disease while treating the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S.
The NIH has also cared for two other people who had high-risk exposures to Ebola, but were later determined to not be infected.
Photo Credit: NIH Clinical Center
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