Another
Sierra Leone doctor has died from Ebola, the 10th to succumb to the disease,
according to a health official. Dr Aiah Solomon Konoyeima’s death on Saturday,
as confirmed by Brima Kargbo, the country’s chief medical officer, came a day
after two other doctors died from Ebola. Konoyeima worked at a children’s
hospital in the capital Freetown and tested positive for Ebola about two weeks
ago.
Junior doctors at the hospital in Sierra Leone where British Ebola survivor Will Pooley is working have gone on strike in protest over inadequate equipment to fight the epidemic ravaging the impoverished country.
The action at Freetown’s Connaught hospital follows the deaths of three doctors in two days, with figures showing Sierra Leone has overtaken Liberia as the country with the most infections. One of the three doctors, Tom Rogers, was a general surgeon at the hospital.
Sierra Leone has overtaken neighbouring Liberia as the country with the highest number of Ebola cases, the latest World Health Organization figures suggest.
Its latest estimate of the cumulative number of cases since the start of the outbreak in March now stands at 7,780 in Sierra Leone and 7,719 in Liberia. In Guinea, the figure is 2,283.
The virus has killed more than 6,300 people in the three West African countries. Just over half the reported deaths have been in Liberia, the WHO says.
Felix Baez Sarria, a Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola while working with a Cuban government medical team in Sierra Leone and was flown to Geneva for treatment on November 20 has returned home to his family on Saturday, after being successfully treated for Ebola at a Swiss hospital. He got infected when he rushed to help a patient who was falling over.
The situation in Mali is so far stable.
