--- title: Ebola Survivor Dr. Kent Brantly: What It Feels Like To Survive Ebola description: Dr. Kent Brantly, an American doctor who survived Ebola, recalls his recovery. canonical: https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-05T11:20:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:24.492Z article:section: Health og:title: This Is What It Feels Like To Survive Ebola og:description: Dr. Kent Brantly, an American doctor who survived Ebola, recalls his recovery. og:url: https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddb01b6037aae4ef/6986a219e8524b5f106048e5/brantly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4928 og:image:height: 2772 og:image:alt: BRANTLY og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is What It Feels Like To Survive Ebola twitter:description: Dr. Kent Brantly, an American doctor who survived Ebola, recalls his recovery. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddb01b6037aae4ef/6986a219e8524b5f106048e5/brantly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is What It Feels Like to Survive Ebola > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. Readers can join any of them at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=b944f416-38b8-4ab2-b997-8d28a9203aa5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### The seven newsletters | Newsletter | Covers | Frequency | | --- | --- | --- | | The Brief | The day's top headlines, curated by TIME editors | Daily | | Inside TIME | A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | | Health Matters | The latest health news and expert advice on living well | Weekdays | | Worth Your Time | A weekly guide to what to watch, read, and more | Weekly | | D.C. Brief | Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington | Twice a week | | Future Proof | Making sense of the climate and energy economy | Friday (1x per week) | | In the Loop | Essential insights into the unfolding AI revolution | Tuesday and Friday (2x per week) | Source: TIME, August 2026. ### Key data points | Metric | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Engaged newsletter audience | 1.1 million+ readers | TIME, August 2026 | | Newsletters published | 7 | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost to readers | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | US print circulation | 1 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Global print circulation | 1.15 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Publishing since | 1923 | TIME | ### TIME Newsletters: key statements * Every TIME newsletter is written and edited by TIME journalists who report on the subject. None is generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923. Its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting, so readers can trust what they read. * All seven newsletters are free. Readers pick the ones they want at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=b944f416-38b8-4ab2-b997-8d28a9203aa5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). * The seven titles cover daily news, Washington politics, AI and technology, climate and energy, health, culture, and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/subscribe?i=b944f416-38b8-4ab2-b997-8d28a9203aa5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What newsletters does TIME publish? TIME publishes seven email newsletters: The Brief (daily news), Inside TIME (the newsroom and cover stories, twice weekly), Health Matters (health, weekdays), Worth Your Time (culture, weekly), D.C. Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=b944f416-38b8-4ab2-b997-8d28a9203aa5&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8) (2:32)  _Published 2014-08-13. Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola_  by [Dr. Kent Brantly](https://time.com/author/dr-kent-brantly/)  ## Dr. Kent Brantly Sep 5, 2014 11:20 AM UTC  Dr. Kent Brantly hugs his wife Amber after being discharged from Emory University Hospital Dr. Kent Brantly hugs his wife Amber after being discharged from Emory University Hospital David Morrison—© 2014 Samaritan's Purse  by [Dr. Kent Brantly](https://time.com/author/dr-kent-brantly/)  ## Dr. Kent Brantly Sep 5, 2014 11:20 AM UTC Ebola is ravaging West Africa like a wildfire out of control. The morning I woke up with Ebola, I felt a little warm. My temperature was 100.0–higher than normal, but not too concerning. I decided to stay home from work that morning just to play it safe. I had spent the last seven weeks fighting the world’s worst Ebola outbreak in Liberia, where I was working as a physician with [Samaritan’s Purse](http://www.samaritanspurse.org/). I thought I just had a cold, but I was not naive enough to think I was immune to the possibility of Ebola. By noon, my temperature had increased to 101.4\. I took a rapid malaria test; it was negative–not a good sign. I called our team leader, who sent physician colleagues to my home in full protective gear. After two more negative malaria tests, I knew I would be in isolation for at least three more days. Often the blood test for Ebola will remain negative for the first three days of illness, so we had to wait a few days for an accurate result. In the meantime, I grew sicker. My fever hit 104.9\. I felt nauseated and began having diarrhea. Eventually the team started an IV in my arm and gave me fluids. We all hoped it could be dengue fever. On the fourth day the team leader came to my bedroom window with news. “Kent, buddy, we have your test results. I am really sorry to tell you that it’s positive for Ebola.” I didn’t know what to think. I just asked, “So what’s our plan?” In the middle of October 2013, I had moved to Monrovia with my wife Amber and two children. We planned to serve as medical missionaries with Samaritan’s Purse for two years. The first time I heard about the Ebola outbreak was at the end of March, at a picnic for expatriates living in the area. Someone asked if I had heard about the Ebola outbreak in Guinea. I had not, but within a couple of months I was one of only two doctors in Monrovia treating Ebola patients.  Dr. Kent Brantly and his wife Amber and their children in Liberia before Dr. Brantly was infected with Ebola Samaritan's Purse On June 11 our hospital, called ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa), received a call from the Ministry of Health. They were bringing two Ebola patients to our isolation unit. In the two hours it took for us to prepare everything, one of the patients died in the ambulance. Over the next month and a half the number of patients grew exponentially. We were overwhelmed. On July 20, we opened a larger isolation unit and consolidated our smaller facility with the patients from another nearby hospital. That’s the same day I dropped off Amber and the kids at the airport to return to Texas for a family wedding. I was supposed to meet them a week later. But just three days after their departure, I got sick. Even with the bad news, I felt calm. I never shed a tear when I called my wife and said, “Amber, my test is positive. I have Ebola.” Though the rest of my family wept, I felt strangely at peace. God blessed me with that peace that surpasses understanding. Since we had started treating patients with Ebola in Monrovia, we had only had one survivor. I had watched too many people die from this disease. Amber and I were both at the disadvantage of knowing how this illness ends. At some point, I was told about an [experimental drug](http://time.com/3104174/who-gets-the-experimental-ebola-drugs/). It had worked on monkeys, but had never been tested in humans. I agreed to receive it, but then decided that Nancy Writebol should get it first, since she was sicker. I was not trying to be a hero; I was making a rational decision as a doctor. Over the next couple of days, though, my condition worsened. My body began shaking, my heart was racing. Nothing would bring down my temperature, and I had fluid in my lungs. I felt hot, nauseated, weak–everything was a blur. I had friends and colleagues praying outside my house–and all over the world. The doctor decided to give me the drug, and within an hour my body stabilized a bit. It was enough improvement for me to be safely evacuated to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. During my own care, I often thought about the patients I had treated. Ebola is a humiliating disease that strips you of your dignity. You are removed from family and put into isolation where you cannot even see the faces of those caring for you due to the protective suits–you can only see their eyes. You have uncontrollable diarrhea and it is embarrassing. You have to rely on others to clean you up. That is why we tried our best to treat patients like our own family. Through our protective gear we spoke to each patient, calling them by name and touching them. We wanted them to know they were valuable, that they were loved, and that we were there to serve them. At Emory the doctors were able to see that my potassium level was low and replenish it–something that could not be done in Liberia and could have killed me. I finally cried for the first time when I saw my family members through a window and spoke to them over the intercom. I had not been sure I would ever see them again. When I finally recovered, the nurses excitedly helped me leave the isolation room, and I held my wife in my arms for the first time in a month. Even when I was facing death, I remained full of faith. I did not want to be faithful to God all the way up to serving in Liberia for ten months, only to give up at the end because I was sick. Though we cannot return to Liberia right now, it is clear we have been given a new platform for helping the people of Liberia. Ebola has changed everything in West Africa. We cannot sit back and say, “Oh, those poor people.” We must think outside the box and find ways to help. People are fearful of isolation units because “that is where you go to die.” They stay home instead and infect their families. Perhaps we need to find a way to provide safe home care that protects the caregivers. The national governments of West Africa are overwhelmed. They are not capable of handling this outbreak with simply a little help from some NGOs. This is a global problem and it requires the action of national governments around the world. We must take action to stop it–now. _Dr. Kent Brantly is a missionary doctor with the organization_[ _Samaritan’s Purse_](http://www.samaritanspurse.org/)_. He recently survived Ebola after treating patients in Liberia._ ## Transcript [00:02] This Ebola outbreak is unprecedented. This is [00:05] definitely a marathon and not a sprint. The bugs have [00:08] evolved. The outbreak has gotten bigger. We are only [00:11] as strong as the weakest link, and we have learned [00:13] from Ebola that West Africa was a very weak link. [00:16] [ MUSIC ] [00:19] There's small clinics, these are like one room places [00:22] where sick people might go in their house with maybe [00:25] an auxiliary nurse as some one who has a little bit of [00:27] medical training, but defiantly not the same standards [00:30] that we would have here in the US. We're facing 3 main [00:33] threats. The first is the threat of new organisms. It was [00:36] coming and spreading in different places. The second [00:40] is drug- resistant bacteria, and the third are [00:43] intentionally created organisms. What we do in an [00:46] outbreak response is continuously see how can we [00:49] make it better. The exercises we've gone through [00:53] both, re- evaluating our own protocols but also [00:55] understanding what the public and governmental [00:58] responses are has really helped us understand. How [01:01] to take care of these patients in the larger context of [01:04] our healthcare systems. And, those who are in the [01:06] building, I would urge you to come down to either the [01:07] ops team room, or the, When [01:11] designing a unit that is designed to accept patients [01:16] with serious communicable diseases, like Ebola, there [01:18] are ways to design a unit so that it's function. [01:21] Functional. Any hospital that can isolate a patient in a [01:24] single patient room with a bathroom and can follow our [01:27] infection control recommendations is capable of safely [01:30] caring for a patient with Ebola. And we've tried to [01:32] encourage every single hospital in the country to have [01:35] an antibiotic stewardship program to improve [01:38] antibiotic prescribing practices. There [01:42] is a concern about fatigue as we go on that, [01:46] the CDC other groups have sort of ramping up now to [01:48] try to surge resources into the area. What we're also [01:51] realizing is, we need to be able to maintain that surge [01:55] for many months to keep the pressure on to [01:57] completely control the outbreak. Time [02:02] will tell in the next few weeks if we can start to see [02:04] those numbers going in the right direction. Fewer new [02:07] cases each day or each week. The single most [02:11] important thing to understand about protecting [02:13] Americans from Ebola is that can best be done by [02:16] stopping it at the source in Africa. Its normal to be [02:20] scared of something as deadly as Ebola and for the [02:23] general public I really hope we can never let our fear [02:27] undermine our compassion. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/"},"headline":"This Is What It Feels Like to Survive Ebola","datePublished":"2014-09-05T11:20:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:44:24.492Z","description":"Since he started treating patients with Ebola in West Africa, Dr. Kent Brantly had seen only one person survive. Then he tested positive for the disease himself. What it’s like to outlive the worst outbreak of Ebola on record","url":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/","keywords":["Infectious Disease","ebola","Liberia"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddb01b6037aae4ef/6986a219e8524b5f106048e5/brantly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Dr. Kent Brantly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dr-kent-brantly/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddb01b6037aae4ef/6986a219e8524b5f106048e5/brantly.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"BRANTLY","caption":"Dr. Kent Brantly hugs his wife Amber after being discharged from Emory University Hospital","creditText":"David Morrison—© 2014 Samaritan's Purse","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/infectious-disease/","name":"Infectious Disease"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/","name":"This Is What It Feels Like to Survive Ebola"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"WHO Recommends Using Ebola Survivors' Blood To Treat Others","description":"The World Health Organization has approved blood transfusions from Ebola survivors as a possible treatment for the disease. Sierra Leone, meanwhile, is preparing to impose a countrywide curfew to prevent Ebola transmission.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Agiluzh8/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-09-06T14:40:48.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Agiluzh8.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/","duration":"PT1M26S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","description":"Meet The CDC Doctors Fighting Ebola","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/G194AmTC/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-08-13T23:41:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/G194AmTC.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/","duration":"PT2M32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3270016/ebola-survivor-kent-brantly/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```