Thomas Duncan, whose condition worsened over the weekend, is receiving brincidofovir after requests from doctors in Dallas

The first man diagnosed with Ebola in the US is begin treated with an experimental medication, officials say, after announcing on Sunday that he is “fighting for his life”.

The Texas Health Presbyterian hospital in Dallas said on Monday that Thomas Eric Duncan began receiving the experimental antiviral drug brincidofovir, made by North Carolina-based biopharmaceutical company Chimerix, on Saturday.

Duncan’s condition worsened over the weekend, and on Monday the hospital said he remains in critical but stable condition.

“Based on in-vitro data from work conducted by the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, we are hopeful that brincidofovir may offer a potential treatment for Ebola during this outbreak,” Dr Michelle Berrey, the president and CEO of Chimerix, said in a statement.

She said requests for the drug were made by treating physicians. The company received federal approval to use the drug, which is in late-stage testing.

Earlier on Monday, the fifth American to contract Ebola in west Africa landed in Omaha for treatment, while officials in Spain announced a nurse in Madrid had become the first person to contract the disease outside Africa.



A specially equipped plane carrying Ashoka Mukpo, an US journalist who contracted the disease while covering the outbreak in Liberia, landed at Eppley airfield in Omaha. Mukpo was then taken by ambulance to the Nebraska Medical Center, where he will be treated in a biomedical isolation unit – the largest in the country.

Mukpo was working in Liberia as a freelance cameraman for NBC News when he tested positive last week. As a precautionary measure, the crew he was working with will remain in isolation for 21 days, the incubation period for the disease. The quarantined team includes the NBC News chief medical editor, Dr Nancy Snyderman.

Duncan, from Liberia, is in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian, which announced on Saturday that his condition had changed from serious to critical. He was diagnosed last Tuesday and placed immediately in isolation. However, days prior, he went to the hospital complaining of symptoms similar to Ebola, and told the on-duty nurse that he had travelled from Liberia. This information was not relayed to the prescribing doctor, who sent the man home with a course of antibiotics.

On Monday, the Texas governor, Rick Perry, announced the creation of a task force charged with improving the state’s preparedness for infectious diseases. The creation of the task force comes as officials are trying to restore confidence after the hospital’s missteps in diagnosing the nation’s first Ebola patient.



“There were mistakes made,” Perry told reporters at the press conference. He added: “But I stand by the fact that the process is working. We don’t have an outbreak. We have one event that is being handled properly.”

The hospital’s misstep prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to update its guidelines for hospitals receiving patients who are displaying symptoms of Ebola, which can include high fever, diarrhoea, vomiting and bleeding.

Health officials in Dallas are currently monitoring 50 people whom they believe may have come into contact with Duncan before he was isolated, the majority of whom are of very low concern. Nine people are considered “high risk”, among them his girlfriend and her family who lived in the apartment where he stayed. The family was moved to a donated residence over the weekend where they will remain under quarantine for the duration of the 21-day incubation period. None of the 50 individuals under observation has displayed any symptoms.

So far, five Americans diagnosed with Ebola in west Africa have been repatriated for treatment including three missionaries, a World Health Organisation doctor and, most recently, the NBC News freelance cameraman. The three missionaries have recovered, and the WHO doctor is still being cared for at Emory University hospital in Atlanta.

Mukpo will be treated at the same hospital as Dr Rick Sacra, 51, a Boston obstetrician and Ebola survivor who contracted the disease while treating patients as a medical missionary at a hospital in Liberia. At the hospital, Sacra was treated with an experimental drug called TKM-Ebola, which is made by Tekmira Pharmaceuticals. He also received a “convalescent serum” made of the antibodies taken from the blood of fellow missionary Dr Kent Brantly, the first-ever Ebola patient treated in the US.

When a patient recovers from Ebola, that person develops antibodies that last for at least 10 years, according to the CDC. It’s not yet known if those who recover develop a lifetime immunity from the disease or if it’s possible for them to become infected with a different strain of Ebola. Some health officials believe the blood of survivors may help Ebola stricken patients fight the disease.

Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who worked for the same aid group in Liberia, were treated together at Emory where they received doses of the untested, experimental drug ZMapp, which has since been depleted.



Drug makers and pharmaceutical companies are doing their best to ramp up production of these drugs; and health agencies have pledged to fast-track the testing process. But even so, it could take months before new doses are available for Ebola sufferers. There are also multiple vaccines in trial phases.

“The drug pipeline is going to be slow, I’m afraid,” the CDC director, Tom Frieden, told NBC’s Meet the Press. “The most promising drug, ZMapp, there’s no more of it, and it’s hard to make, it takes months to make just a bit.”