Condition of American Healthcare Worker With Ebola Upgraded

An American healthcare worker infected with Ebola has been ungraded from critical to serious condition, hospital officials announced Thursday.

The patient was flown to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, from Sierra Leone earlier this month. Days after he or she was admitted, health officials said the patient's condition had deteriorated from serious to critical condition.

The agency said in a statement Thursday that the patient's status had improved, but no additional details about the patient were shared.

The patient, a clinician working with Partners in Health, a Boston-based nonprofit, had been volunteering at an Ebola treatment unit in Sierra Leone when he or she contracted the disease.

The patient's name, age and gender have not been 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 patient 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.

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