FREETOWN (Reuters) – A Cuban doctor who caught Ebola while treating patients in Sierra Leone left the country on Thursday afternoon in an aircraft bound for Switzerland, a Reuters witness said.
The doctor Felix Baez, 43, is the first known Cuban to have contracted the disease which has killed at least 5,450 people in West Africa since March in the worst outbreak on record.
Baez, a father of two children, was due to arrive in Geneva for medical treatment later on Thursday.
A Cuban health official said on Wednesday he was in stable condition. It was not immediately clear how he came to catch the hemorrhagic fever which is spread via bodily fluids such as blood, sweat and vomit.
(Reporting by Josephus Olu-Mammah; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Joe Bavier)