Ebola-infected Sierra Leone doctor ‘extremely ill’ in US
WASHINGTON: A doctor infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone was said to be ‘extremely ill’ as he began receiving treatment Saturday in the United States, as the world’s most powerful economies vowed to ‘extinguish’ the deadly epidemic.
Martin Salia, a US resident who was infected with the deadly hemorrhagic fever while treating patients in his home country, was flown to Nebraska for treatment.
Global leaders meeting at the G20 summit in the Australian city of Brisbane said they were prepared “to do what is necessary to ensure the international effort can extinguish the outbreak”.
Ebola has killed more than 5,100 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The vast desert nation of Mali, meanwhile, scrambled to prevent a new outbreak of the disease that has killed three people, despite hopeful signs elsewhere in Africa.
Liberia has lifted its state of emergency and the Democratic Republic of Congo announced the end of its own outbreak of the disease.
In London, musicians including boy band One Direction and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant recorded a new ‘Band Aid’ single to help combat the virus.
In Brisbane, G20 members welcomed the International Monetary Fund’s initiative to release 300 million to combat Ebola and promised to share best practices on protecting health workers on the front line.
In the United States, attention was focused on the University of Nebraska Medical Center where Salia arrived in an “extremely critical condition” Saturday from Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown where he had gone to treat Ebola patients at a hospital.
“This is an hour-by-hour
This is an hour-by-hour situation. Phil Smith, medical director of biocontainment unit at UNMC
situation,”saidPhilSmith,medical director of the biocontainment unit at UNMC, one of a handful of medical facilities in the United States specially designated to treat Ebola patients.
“He is extremely ill,” Smith said.
“We will do everything humanly possible to help him fight this disease.”
Salia is the third Ebola patient to be treated by the UNMC – the previous two survived.
The G20 pledge came as Togo, which is coordinating the west African fight, warned that the world ‘cannot relax efforts’ despite some encouraging signals on the ground.
Senegal said Friday it was reopening its air and sea borders with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, although its land border with Guinea will remain closed.
The news came a day after Liberia lifted its state of emergency after announcing huge gains in fighting Ebola.
The DR Congo – where a threemonth outbreak of a different strain of the disease claimed at least 49 lives since August – declared itself Ebola-free on Saturday.
But Mali is the latest source of concern, where there are fears an isolated outbreak could spark a major crisis after the deaths of three people infected by a Guinean imam who died of Ebola.
A fourth person, a doctor at the Bamako clinic where the cleric died, is in intensive care. More than 250 people have been placed under observation.
Former colonial power France added Mali to its list of destinations subject to Ebola flight checks, and its development minister, Annick Girardin, made an unscheduled visit to the region.
“The situation in Mali is worrying,” she told AFP in the Guinean capital Conakry, saying she would meet Malian authorities “to see how we can scale things up.”
There is no known cure for Ebola, one of the deadliest known pathogens, but trials for several possible treatments were announced this week in west Africa and Canada. — AFP