A SURGEON who treated patients in Sierra Leone died of Ebola on Monday, November 17. Dr. Martin Salia, became the second person to die of the disease in the United States.
Salia, 44, worked as a general surgeon at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in Sierra Leone. It is unknown where he contracted the virus, but he worked in an area where Ebola cases were prevalent, hospital officials said.
Salia exhibited Ebola symptoms in early November, but he tested negative for the illness. His symptoms continued and results indicated he was positive for the disease last week.
Phil Smith, medical director of the Biocontainment Unit at Nebraska Medical Center, announced Salia’s death in a release.
“It is with an extremely heavy heart that we share this news,” he said. “Dr. Salia was extremely critical when he arrived here, and unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to save him.”
When Salia arrived in Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday, November 15, he was 13 days into the disease. Dr. Daniel Johnson, director of Critical Care Anesthesiology at Nebraska Medical Center, said he was having a hard time breathing and his kidneys had failed.
“Within the first few hours of his arrival we started running continuous dialysis and within the first 12 hours he had progressed to complete respiratory failure, requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation,” Johnson said. “Shortly after that he developed severely low blood pressure. He progressed to the point of cardiac arrest and we weren’t able to get him through this.”
Salia was also provided blood plasma from an Ebola survivor and an experimental drug called Zmapp that could help fight the disease.
“We used every possible treatment available to give Dr. Salia every possible opportunity for survival,” Smith said. “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’s wife, Isatsu Salia, said she was grateful for the efforts of the medical team led by Smith to save her husband.
“In the short time we spent here, it was apparent how caring and compassionate everyone was,” she said. “We are so appreciative of the opportunity for my husband to be treated here and believe he was in the best place possible.”
Salia was a citizen of Sierra Leone and permanent US resident who lived with his family in Maryland.
The first person to die of Ebola in the US was Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man living in Texas. He contracted the disease in Liberia and was diagnosed when he returned to the United States.
In West Africa, more than 5,000 people have died of Ebola, most of whom live in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
(With reports from CNN, The New York Times and USA Today)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek November 19-21, 2014 Sec. A pg.1)
