??? A leading doctor from Sierra Leone specializing in viral hemorrhagic fever, Dr. Sheik Umar Khan contracted the Ebola virus while treating patients who also had it, and died at age 39 from the disease. ????SIERRA LEONE is in mourning after a leading virologist who risked his life to treat dozens of Ebola patients became the latest health care worker to die from the lethal virus, which has now killed more than 670 people across West Africa. ????Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan was working at the Kenema Government Hospital in eastern Sierra Leone when Ebola broke out in the country for the first time this spring. ????Several of his nurses became sick, and then last week Khan was also confirmed to have Ebola. He underwent treatment at an isolation unit operated by the medical aid organization, Médecins Sans Frontières, but died Tuesday night, according to his older sister. ????“He’s a hero,” said Assata Khan. “He fought like an animal. He fought for people’s lives. And now his own time has come.” ????The current outbreak, which exploded onto the world’s radar in March, has become the biggest Ebola crisis on record, infecting more than 1,200 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. ????Last week, the virus also spread to a fourth country after a 40-year-old American consultant for Liberia’s Ministry of Finance died in Lagos, Nigeria — one of Africa’s most densely populated countries with 170 million people. ????Patrick Sawyer had flown to Lagos from the Liberian capital of Monrovia, making two stopovers in Ghana and Togo. Asky Airlines, the major regional airline on which he flew, has now suspended all flights to the capitals of Sierra Leone and Liberia. ????According to a written statement, Asky will also screen passengers departing from Guinea and Monrovia, with police officers stationed at airports to enforce the screening. ????The World Health Organization has said the risk of catching Ebola from a fellow passenger is low, however, and has not recommended any travel restrictions. ????There is no vaccine or specific treatment for Ebola, which has killed nearly 60 percent of its victims in the current outbreak. More than 100 of them have been health workers, who are especially vulnerable to contracting the virus, which is spread through bodily fluids such as saliva, sweat, blood and urine. Two Americans — a doctor and a hygienist — are currently hospitalized with Ebola in Liberia. ????Assata Khan believes her brother likely caught the virus from infected colleagues. ????She said her brother — the second-youngest of 10 children who dreamed of becoming a doctor in his youth — headed up a Lassa fever program at the Kenema Government Hospital. ????In July, Khan complained of what was thought to be a common cold but later proved to be the Ebola virus itself. ????He was admitted for treatment at the Ebola Treatment Center in Kailahun, one week after he was diagnosed with the disease. ????Doctors from Medecins Sans Frontieres who were treating him had hoped he would recover, reporting that he had showed signs of improving health. ????Khan is now the hospital’s second doctor to die on the job. In 2004, Dr. Aniru Conteh passed away after being accidentally pricked by a needle contaminated with Lassa, another viral hemorrhagic fever that can cause symptoms similar to those of Ebola. ????Khan was hired to replace him as head of the Lassa fever program — a task “few others were willing to take on,” according to Dr. Daniel Bausch, an American academic who recently returned from Sierra Leone, where he worked alongside Khan in treating Ebola patients. ????Bausch is an associate professor of tropical medicine at New Orleans’ Tulane University, a partner institution for Sierra Leone’s Lassa fever program. ????“When Ebola came, he similarly stepped up,” Bausch wrote in an email. “As with everything he did, he seized the task with professionalism, amicability and, where appropriate, no small amount of humor. He was almost always animated and enthusiastic.” ????Dr. Robert Garry, another Tulane professor who worked with Khan, remembered his colleague as someone who loved football and was passionate about teaching other people about viruses. ????“Dr. Khan was completely dedicated to his work with VHF (viral hemorraghic fever),” Garry said in an email. “He easily had treated more VHF patients (Lassa fever and Ebola) than anyone else ever.” ????Khan, who is survived by his wife and two young children, was buried in Kenema on Wednesday. ????His sister said Khan often described his job as being not easy but “cared about people too much.” ????“He will be sorely missed,” Bausch said. “He would want us to also recognize at this sad moment the other dedicated health care workers in Kenema and elsewhere who have made similar sacrifices.” ????Khan studied at Sierra Leone University’s College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences. ????He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Medicine and a bachelor’s degree in Surgery in 2001, and began working as a tropical medicine and infectious disease physician. ????Shortly after university, he began working for the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation, where he served until 2005. ????He was then promoted to lead the Lassa fever program in Kenema. ????He also spent time, between 2010 and 2013, doing a residency in Internal Medicine at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana.(SD-Agencies) | 