A Senegalese doctor who contracted Ebola while working for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Sierra Leone arrived in Hamburg yesterday for treatment at a tropical medicine unit, becoming Germany’s first patient with the disease.

The clinic’s tropical medicine specialist said the man would not be given new experimental drugs but his treatment would at first focus on managing his symptoms.

Doctor had worked in laboratory that was testing for the virus

The doctor arrived in Germany on a specialist plane and was transferred to the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf in a special isolation ambulance, accompanied by a police guard.

The WHO had approached the clinic on Saturday to ask if they would accept the patient, Rico Schmidt, health spokesman for Hamburg city senate told reporters.

Doctors at the clinic declined to give details about the man’s condition due to patient confidentiality, but said the fact he was able to enter the aeroplane himself suggested he was well enough to benefit from treatment.

The patient, who has not been named, had worked in a laboratory in Sierra Leone that was testing for Ebola, the WHO has said.

It shut the laboratory on Tuesday after he became infected.

Hamburg-based tropical medicine specialist Stefan Schmiedel said they would not be using drugs such as ZMapp, which has been given to some Ebola patients including a British volunteer nurse who was recently repatriated to London.

Treatment would at first consist of managing the patient’s vital functions, pain and fever levels.

“We believe through these simple measures the threat of Ebola can be reduced,” Schmiedel said.

Ebola is transmitted by contact with body fluids.

At least 1,427 people have died and 2,615 have been infected since the disease was detected deep in the forests of Guinea in March.

The WHO has deployed nearly 400 of its own staff and partner organisations to fight the epidemic of the highly contagious hemorrhagic fever.

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