Surgeon with Ebola will be flown to U.S. for treatment
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — A surgeon working in Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and will be flown today to the United States for treatment, U.S. and Sierra Leone officials said Friday.
Dr. Martin Salia was to be taken to Omaha to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center, Sierra Leone’s chief medical officer, Dr. Brima Kargbo, told The Associated Press. Salia reportedly lives in Maryland.
Salia is a general surgeon who had been working at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown.
Patients, including mothers who hours earlier had given birth, fled the hospital after news of the Ebola case emerged, United Methodist News reported.
The hospital was closed Tuesday after Salia tested positive, and he was taken to the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center near Freetown, the church news service said. Kissy hospital staffers will be quarantined for 21 days.
A Sierra Leone citizen, Salia, 44, lives in Maryland and is a permanent U.S. resident, according to a person in the U.S. with direct knowledge of the situation. The person was not authorized to release the information and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Salia received his surgical training from a group called the Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons, which seeks to train African doctors on a level comparable to training they would receive in the U.S., said Richard Toupin, of Auburn, Indiana, a fellow medical missionary.
“He is one of the besttrained surgeons in his country,” Toupin said.
Bruce Steffes, executive director of PAACS, said Salia graduated from the surgical program in 2008.
The training includes a requirement to practice in Africa for four years after completion. As a result, Steffes said, Salia was free to practice anywhere, but elected to stay in Sierra Leone, where the need for surgeons is immense.