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Surgeon Brought from Sierra Leone Dies of Ebola in U.S.

HeadlineNov 18, 2014

A surgeon brought to the United States over the weekend after contracting Ebola in Sierra Leone has died, marking the second Ebola fatality in the United States. Martin Salia was a native of Sierra Leone and a legal permanent resident of the United States. His wife, who lives in Maryland, reportedly paid $200,000 to fly him to the United States, but by the time he arrived he had been sick for nearly two weeks. Dr. Dan Johnson, director of critical care at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said Salia was critically ill when he was admitted.

Dr. Dan Johnson: “He had no kidney function. He was working extremely hard to breathe, and he was unresponsive. 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.”

Doctors said Salia received the same treatments as other Ebola patients in the United States, included a dose of the extremely rare experimental drug ZMapp.

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