A second leading Sierra Leone doctor has succumbed to the Ebola epidemic sweeping across West Africa, dealing another blow to the country’s faltering efforts to stem the disease.
Dr. Modupeh Cole, 56, died Wednesday at the Ebola treatment center operated by Doctors Without Borders in the northeastern town of Kailahun, officials at the health ministry said.
He had apparently been infected while seeing a patient at the country’s leading hospital, Connaught Hospital, here in the capital, officials said. The patient later tested positive for Ebola.
The loss of Dr. Cole was described as significant by health officials in a country with a severe shortage of well-trained doctors, especially coming two weeks after the death of Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan, the virologist who was leading the fight against the disease in eastern Sierra Leone, where it has flourished.
Dr. Cole “was a highly qualified physician, and we have very few of them on hand,” said Dr. Amara Jambai, director of prevention and control at the health ministry. “You can imagine what this does to the younger cohort. It’s like having a general falling in battle. It just brings more misery. It’s not good. When you have a health system that’s constrained, it’s a bit too much.”