OMAHA — A surgeon who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone was in extremely critical condition Sunday at a Nebraska hospital, his doctors said.
Dr. Martin Salia, who was diagnosed with Ebola on Monday, arrived in Omaha on Saturday to be treated at Nebraska Medical Center’s biocontainment unit, which has successfully treated two other Ebola patients this fall.
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Salia, 44, is ‘‘extremely ill,’’ said Dr. Phil Smith, who is helping oversee Salia’s treatment. The 44-year-old Salia might be more ill than the first Ebola patients successfully treated in the United States, according to the hospital.
‘‘This is an hour-by-hour situation,’’ Smith said Sunday, adding that a team of specialists is treating Salia’s most serious issues. ‘‘We will do everything humanly possible to help him fight this disease.’’
Ebola has killed more than 5,000 people in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leona. Of the 10 people treated for the virus in the United States, all but one — Thomas Duncan — has recovered.
After Salia arrived in Omaha, his ambulance to the hospital was accompanied by a single State Police cruiser and a Fire Department vehicle, a subdued arrival in contrast to the August delivery of Dr. Rick Sacra, whose ambulance was flanked by numerous police cars, motorcycles, and fire vehicles.
Salia has been working as a general surgeon at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in the Sierra Leone capital of Freetown. He mostly lived in Freetown but visited his wife, Isatu, and their two children, ages 12 and 20, in New Carrollton, Md., several times a year.
He is a Sierra Leone citizen and permanent US resident, while his wife is an American citizen, the Washington Post reported.
Kissy is not an Ebola treatment unit, but Salia worked in at least three other facilities, United Methodist News said, citing health ministry sources.
Salia first showed Ebola symptoms on Nov. 6 but tested negative for the virus. He eventually tested positive on Monday.
The US State Department said it helped facilitate the transfer of Salia; the US Embassy in Freetown said he paid for the expensive evacuation. The travel costs and care of other Ebola patients flown to the United States have been covered by the groups they worked for in West Africa.
Salia’s wife said in a telephone interview that when she spoke to her husband early Friday his voice sounded weak and shaky. But he told her ‘‘I love you’’ in a steady voice, she said.
The two prayed together, and their children are coping, Isatu Salia said, calling her husband ‘‘my everything.’’
Nebraska Medical Center spokesman Taylor Wilson said members of Salia’s family were not at the hospital Saturday but were expected to arrive soon.
Sierra Leone is one of the three West Africa nations hit hard by the epidemic. Five other doctors there have contracted Ebola, and all have died.
In an April interview posted on YouTube by the United Methodist Church, Salia said he felt a religious calling to work in Sierra Leone.
‘‘I knew it wasn’t going to be rosy, but why did I decide to choose this job? I firmly believe God wanted me to do it,’’ Salia said, a stethoscope hanging around his neck. ‘‘I took this job not because I want to, but I firmly believe that it was a calling and that God wanted me to.’’
Bruce Steffes, a general surgeon in North Carolina and executive director of the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons, said Salia graduated from the academy’s surgical residency program in Cameroon in 2008. The academy pays for African nationals’ medical residency in exchange for four years of service in African missionary hospitals. Steffes said Salia completed his four-year commitment in 2012 but remained in Sierra Leone rather than join his family permanently in the United States.
Steffes said Salia is one of five or six surgeons in all of Sierra Leone.
‘‘He could have gone into private service and made a lucrative living,’’ Steffes said. ‘‘But the fact that he stayed committed to missionary hospitals tells you everything you need to know about who he is and his faith and what’s important to him.’’
Material from the Washington Post was used in this report.