Another leading doctor in the fight against Ebola has died. Following the shocking death of Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, a leading Ebola specialist in Sierra Leone, another doctor has died during the Ebola epidemic which is engulfing West Africa and caused the WHO to declare Ebola “an international emergency”.
Dead is Dr. Modupeh Cole, 56, who died just Wednesday August 13th at the Centre for Ebola Treatment in the northeastern town of Kailahun. The centre was operated by Doctors Without Borders. His death has dealt another blow to the people of Sierra Leone and the fight against Ebola.
“Dr. Cole was a highly qualified physician, and we have very few of them on hand. You can imagine what this does to the younger cohort. It’s like having a general falling in battle. It just brings more misery. It’s not good. When you have a health system that’s constrained, it’s a bit too much,” said Dr. Amara Jambai, director of prevention and control at the health ministry.
According to reports, he became infected while seeing a patient infected with the deadly virus at Connaught Hospital.
“He was trying to see a patient, and the patient was falling,” Dr. Jambai said. “The patient was trying to help himself to the couch, and the patient fell.”
To date the disease has claimed over 1013 lives across four West African nations including Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone reported 730 cases with the third highest death toll.
Meanwhile in Liberia, its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augustine Ngafuan, personally transported three courses of the experimental drug Zmapp on a flight from the United States. The Liberian government had requested the drug of President Barack Obama and has since said that two courses would be administered to two doctors from John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, the Liberian capital.
