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 Dr. Martin Salia, a native of Sierra Leone and a permanent U.S.
resident, had been in very critical condition when he arrived at the
Nebraska Medical Center on Saturday afternoon, Dr. Phil Smith,
director of the biocontainment unit, said at a news conference.
"He had no kidney function, he was working extremely hard to breathe
and he was unresponsive," Dr. Daniel Johnson said.
Salia was put on dialysis within hours of his arrival and required
intubation and mechanical ventilation within 12 hours. He was given
plasma from an Ebola survivor and the drug ZMapp provided by Mapp
Biopharmaceutical on Saturday, said Dr. Chris Kratochvil, associate
vice chancellor for clinical research at the University of Nebraska
Medical Center.
Salia, 44, who was chief medical officer at United Methodist Kissy
Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, tested positive last week for
Ebola, the United Methodist Church's news service said.
The news service said it was unclear how or where Salia contracted
Ebola. Salia, who had trained as a doctor in Sierra Leone's College
of Medicine, also worked at several other medical facilities.
"Our hearts go out to his grieving family," Bishop Warner H. Brown
Jr., president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, said in a
statement. "Dr. Salia was a dedicated Christian physician who was
living out a calling to serve others."
Salia was flown to the United States at the request of his wife, an
American who lives in Maryland.
Salia was the third Ebola patient treated at the Omaha hospital. The
two other Ebola patients, who were infected in Liberia, recovered.
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Smith said staff who worked directly on Salia will take their
temperatures twice a day, check daily for symptoms and log results
into a database but will not be limited from working.
"As long as they are asymptomatic they are considered safe," Smith
said. "Even if they were infected, they would not spread it to
anyone else."
The current outbreak of Ebola is the worst on record. It has killed
at least 5,177 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea,
according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins and David Bailey; Editing by Susan
Heavey, Doina Chiacu and Bill Trott)
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