The third US missionary who contracted Ebola in West Africa is “making progress” in his recovery, mission group SIM said late last week.
Dr Rick Sacra, who contracted the virus while serving in Liberia, was flown to a medical facility in Nebraska in the US earlier this month. In a statement on SIM’s website last Friday, his wife Debbie said while the concern for Dr Sacra was appreciated, “he wants you to share his burden for the people of Liberia and West Africa, to carry (the burden) along with him”.
“We appreciate that many have given to SIM and many other organisations to make sure that health workers have protective equipment. But the fight against this crisis is going to take more time and more resources,” she said.
Last month, Dr Kent Brantly of Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, and SIM nurse Nancy Writebol were discharged from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after recovering from the Ebola virus. They had both been given received an experimental drug known as ZMapp.
It was reported last week that Dr Brantly, as well as visiting the Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in the US to thank staff for their prayers, had donated a unit of blood to help treat Dr Sacra. It has been reported that Dr Sacra has also been treated with an unidentified experimental drug.
Meanwhile, a fourth Sierra Leonean doctor tackling the Ebola crisis – Dr Olivet Buck – reportedly died on the weekend. More than 300 health care workers working in that country as well as Guinea and Liberia have been infected with the virus.
The number of confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone has now topped 4,300, according to UN information released on Friday. More than 2,200 people have died.
Correction: This article originally stated Dr Olivet Buck was from Germany. She was, in fact, from Sierra Leone. The article has been corrected
