CLARENCE ROY-MACAULAY
Associated Press
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Authorities in Sierra Leone said Sunday that another doctor there has tested positive for Ebola, marking a setback for efforts to keep desperately needed health care workers safe in the West African country ravaged by the deadly virus.
Government Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brima Kargbo confirmed on Sunday that a fifth doctor in Sierra Leone had tested positive. The other four all have died from the virus that has killed nearly 5,000 across West Africa.
The sick physician has been identified as Dr. Godfrey George, medical superintendent of Kambia Government Hospital in northern Sierra Leone. He was driven to the capital, Freetown, after reporting he wasn’t feeling well.
Doctors and nurses have been the most vulnerable to contracting Ebola, as the virus is spread through bodily fluids. Some 523 health workers have contracted Ebola, and about half of them have died.
France said it was treating a U.N. employee who had contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone.
France’s government announced in a statement late Saturday that a U.N. employee had been evacuated there by a special flight and was undergoing treatment in “high-security isolation” in the Begin Army Training Hospital in Saint-Mande, near Paris.
It didn’t identify the patient or the U.N. agency where the patient works.
France previously had taken in a French medic with Doctors Without Borders in September who had Ebola. She later recovered from the infection.
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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this report.
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