2 Sierra Leone Ebola Doctors Die in One Day
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Two doctors died of Ebola in Sierra Leone on the same day, a government and a hospital source said, bringing to 10 the number of doctors killed in by the virus in one of the worst-affected countries.
The worst Ebola outbreak on record has torn through some of West Africa's weakest health systems, killing nearly 350 medical personnel, including 106 in Sierra Leone, which is still rebuilding from years of war in the 1990s.
"We are devastated at this haemorrhaging of our healthcare workers," a senior health ministry official told the Reuters news agency, asking not to be named.
There was no immediate comment from authorities but the sources named the two dead doctors, Al Jazeera reported.
It is not clear how the men were infected as they were not working on the frontline in an Ebola clinic.
While addressing parliament earlier on Friday, President Ernest Bai Koroma had called medical personnel fighting Ebola the country's "greatest patriots".
Sierra Leone has pledged to pay the families of all medical staff who die battling Ebola $5,000 in compensation.
The latest figures from the World Health Organisation showed Ebola has killed nearly 6,200 people, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, since it was confirmed in the region earlier this year.
In an effort to step up the fight against the disease, more than 175 Nigerian medics arrived in Liberia and Sierra Leone on Friday, the first of 600 volunteers promised by a regional giant which contained its own outbreak earlier this year.
The medics will boost weak local health systems that are also struggling to contain other preventable diseases as Ebola discourages people from going to clinics for fear of contracting the fever.
