Cuban MD who Contracted Ebola Returning Home Soon

HAVANA TIMES — The Cuban doctor who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone has recovered from the disease and will soon return to the island, according to a statement from the health authorities published today in Havana.

Those responsible for the University Hospital of Geneva where Dr. Felix Baez is being treated “confirmed that the testing has confirmed the disappearance of the virus in his body fluids,” stated the text of the Ministry of Health cited by Prensa Latina.

When discharged, the doctor will return to Cuba, added the text, without specifying dates. Baez is part of a contingent of 165 Cuban medical personnel who traveled to Sierra Leone in October to fight Ebola.

The doctor contracted the disease in mid-November and was taken days later to Geneva, under an agreement between Cuba and the World Health Organization (WHO) to treat Cuban collaborators who could become sick with Ebola in West Africa, noted dpa news.

Cuba has been at the forefront of the international fight against Ebola by sending a total of 256 doctors and other health workers to the three countries most affected by the epidemic, which has killed at least 6,187 people, according to the latest figures from the WHO.

In addition to the 165 aid workers in Sierra Leone, the government of Raul Castro sent another 91 to Liberia and Guinea in mid-October. WHO currently estimates the number of infections in the three countries at 17,517, in what is considered the worst outbreak of Ebola in history.

After the departure of the Cuban medical teams to Africa, WHO sources on the island had specified that those who fell ill with Ebola would not be repatriated to Cuba. Baez is the first Latin American known to have contracted the virus.