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Second US Doctor Sick with Ebola; Crisis 'Out of Control'

CBN

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Another American doctor in Liberia has tested positive for the Ebola virus, according to the international Christian mission organization, SIM.

SIM leaders report the American doctor was treating obstetrics patients at the organization's ELWA Hospital in Monrovia and not treating Ebola patients.

It's not yet known how he contracted the virus. The doctor has been transferred to the ELWA Ebola isolation unit.

SIM officials say he's doing well and in good spirits.

The news comes as U.S. officials warned the battle against the Ebola epidemic that's stricken four West African countries is "spiraling out of control."

"It's bad now and it's going to get worse in the very near future," director for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Tom Frieden told CBS News. "There is still a window of opportunity to tamp it down, but that window is closing. We really have to act now."

"Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it," Doctors Without Borders President Joanne Liu said at a United Nations forum. "Ebola treatment centers are reduced to places where people go to die alone, where little more than palliative care is offered."

The group is joining a chorus of health experts who say it's time for a larger global response to the epidemic.

"Vaccines and treatments may come along, but right now what we have are tried and true methods that we have to scale up," Frieden said. "They have worked in prior outbreaks but we are not getting to scale."

"The epidemic is going faster than we are," he warned. "We need to scale up our response. We can hope for new tools and maybe they'll come, but we can't count on them."

So far, the West African outbreak has killed more than 1,500 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

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