NEWS: US missionaries beat Ebola

Two American missionaries who contracted Ebola while treating patients in Liberia have left hospital after making a full recovery, doctors said on Thursday, as authorities in the west African nation struggled to deal with their dead.

Doctors Kent Brantly, 33, and Nancy Writebol, 60, caught the disease in Monrovia in the midst of an outbreak that has has killed 1 350 people since March in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.



The pair were given experimental drugs before being airlifted back to the United States, where they have been treated at a hospital in Atlanta for the last three weeks.

"The discharge from the hospital of both these patients poses no public health threat," said Bruce Ribner, director of Emory Hospital's Infectious Disease Unit.

The news of their recovery came as west African countries intensified their efforts to contain the worst-ever outbreak of the disease ahead of the arrival of the UN's top Ebola official in the region.

Liberia, which has seen the biggest toll in this epidemic with 576 deaths, has witnessed chaotic scenes in recent days following a surge in the number of patients succumbing to the haemorrhagic fever.

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