A United Nations medical worker who was infected with Ebola while working in Liberia has died despite receiving "intensive medical procedures" at a German hospital, contributing to an increasing death rate of 70 percent in the worst-ever outbreak of the deadly disease, a hospital in Leipzig said Tuesday.
The 56-year-old patient, whose name has not been released, was being treated at St. Georg hospital when he died overnight of the infection, the Associated Press reported. The hospital did not release any further details and did not answer telephone calls.
After the man was diagnosed with Ebola on Oct.6, 41 staff members of Liberia's UN peacekeeping mission were placed under "close medical observation" since they could have possibly been in contact with the patient. But until now, they have not shown any symptoms.
On Oct. 9, he arrived in Leipzig for treatment, with the hospital's chief executive, Dr. Iris Minde, touting the infection as being of no risk to other patients, relatives, visitors or the public at the time.
"The man was kept in a secure isolation ward specially equipped with negative pressure rooms that are hermetically sealed and can only be accessed through a number of airlocks," according to the AP. "All air and fluids are filtered and all equipment is decontaminated after use, Minde said."
Till now, Germany has treated at least three Ebola patients. In late August, a Senegalese man was released from a Hamburg hospital on Oct. 3 after recovering from the virus. He had been infected while working for the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone, the hospital said.
A second patient from Uganda, who worked for an Italian aid group in West Africa, is currently undergoing treatment at a clinic in Frankfurt, according to USA Today.
The development comes as major U.S. airports and Britain's Heathrow airport begin to start screening passengers from Ebola-infected countries.
On Tuesday, WHO assistant director-general Dr. Bruce Aylward stated that mortality rate of the disease could rise up to 10,000 new cases per week in the next two months. Currently, only 1,000 cases per week are being reported.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 4,000 people have been killed by Ebola, with Liberia reporting more than 2,300 deaths, including 95 health workers, this year, Voice of America reported.
On Thursday, the presidents of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, whose countries received minimal health support before Ebola's outbreak, appealed to the World Bank for providing more help to their nations.
"What we're paying for now is our failure to have invested in those countries before," said Francisco Ferreira, the World Bank's chief economist for Africa.
