Ebola-stricken doctor flown to US for treatment dies

A surgeon who contracted the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone died at the Nebraska medical center where he had been flown for treatment, hospital officials said Monday.

Dr. Martin Salia, 44, passed away after he arrived Saturday at the Nebraska Medical Center from a hospital in Freetown with advanced symptoms of the disease including kidney and respiratory failure, authorities said.

"It is with an extremely heavy heart that we share this news," Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medical Center and professor of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the hospital's academic partner, said in a release. "Dr. Salia was extremely critical when he arrived here, and unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we weren't able to save him."

Salia was placed on dialysis, a ventilator and multiple medications to support his organs. He also received a dose of convalescent plasma and ZMapp, an experimental drug that has been given to patients who survived the virus.

"We used every possible treatment available to give Dr. Salia, every possible opportunity for survival," said Dr. Smith. "As we have learned, early treatment with these patients is essential. In Dr. Salia's case, his disease was already extremely advanced by the time he came here for treatment."

Salia is the second Ebola patient treated in the U.S. to die from Ebola. The first, Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, died on Oct. 8 in a Dallas hospital. He had traveled to Texas from Liberia, where he contracted the disease.

Salia began showing Ebola symptoms on Nov. 6, according to news reports, but test results for the virus showed up negative until the following week. He had been working as a general surgeon at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in the Sierra Leone’s capital city, where hospital workers were put under 21-day quarantine after his diagnosis.

Sierra Leone is one of the three West African countries, along with Guinea and Liberia, that has been hardest hit by this year’s deadly Ebola epidemic. In total, the disease has killed more than 5,000 people.

With wire services