U.S. doctor treating patients in Liberia tests positive for Ebola

A Texas physician treating Ebola patients in Liberia has tested positive for the deadly virus, the Christian charity for which he works reported Saturday.

The incident has heightened fears of a spread of Ebola in some of Africa’s most densely populated cities after a Liberian man died last week in Lagos, Nigeria -- Africa’s largest city with 21 million residents. Nigerian health officials fear the man might have brought the virus on a flight from Monrovia.

The Ebola outbreak is devastating West Africa and will spread to more countries unless more aid is provided, an official with the group Doctors Without Borders said Friday.

The disease has killed 672 in four West African countries so far this year.

Kent Brantly, a 33-year-old doctor with a private practice in Fort Worth, had been serving as medical director for the Samaritan’s Purse Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia, the Liberian capital, the aid agency said.

Brantly was undergoing treatment at a Samaritan’s Purse isolation center at the Eternal Love Winning Africa Hospital after testing positive for Ebola, the group said in a statement on its website.

“Samaritan’s Purse is continuing medical operations at our Ebola Case Management Centers in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, the Liberia Ministry of Health, and other global health authorities,” the agency said.

Samaritan’s Purse said Brantly is married with two children and urged its membership to “pray for him and his family.”

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