WASHINGTON: A surgeon who was infected with Ebola while working in his native Sierra Leone has died, becoming the second patient in the United States to succumb to the haemorrhagic virus, officials said yesterday.
Martin Salia, 44, a US resident, was infected with Ebola while treating patients in his home country. The virus has killed thousands in West Africa since the start of the year.
Salia was flown to Nebraska for treatment on Saturday, but doctors said his organs were failing by the time he arrived and they were unable to save him.
“Dr Salia was suffering from advanced symptoms of Ebola when he arrived at the hospital on Saturday, which included kidney and respiratory failure,” the Nebraska Medical Center in a statement.
“He was placed on dialysis, a ventilator and multiple medications to support his organ systems in an effort to help his body fight the disease.”
Salia was also given donated plasma from a survivor of Ebola and the experimental drug treatment ZMapp.
The hospital said late on Sunday that doctors were doing everything they could to save him.
“It is with an extremely heavy heart that we share this news,” said Phil Smith, medical director of the Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medical Center, in a statement early yesterday.
“Dr Salia was extremely critical when he arrived here, and unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to save him.”
Salia was the 10th person with Ebola to be treated in the United States, and the second to have died from the infection which causes vomiting, diarrhea and often fatal bleeding.
In October, a Liberian man, Thomas Eric Duncan, died at a Texas hospital of the virus which has killed thousands of people in West Africa in history’s largest outbreak to date.
AFP
