A doctor’s mistaken Ebola test: ‘We were celebrating. Then everything fell apart’

[mfcorey1]

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — When Martin Salia’s Ebola test came back negative, his friends and colleagues threw their arms around him. They shook his hand. They patted him on the back. They removed their protective gear and cried.

But when his symptoms remained nearly a week later, Salia took another test, on Nov. 10. This one came back positive, sending the Sierra Leonean doctor with ties to Maryland on a desperate, belated quest for treatment and forcing the colleagues who had embraced him into quarantine.

“We were celebrating. If the test says you are Ebola-free, we assume you are Ebola-free,” said Komba Songu M’Briwa, who cared for Salia at the Hastings Ebola Treatment Center in Freetown. “Then everything fell apart.”

Salia died early Monday at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, his family left to wonder what would have happened if he had received earlier treatment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-doctors-mistaken-ebola-test-we-were-celebrating--then-everything-fell-apart/2014/11/16/946a84da-6dd5-11e4-a2c2-478179fd0489_story.html?tid=sm_fb

[justhanginon]

1. According to the WP article,

it was not that the test itself was mistaken but rather that it was taken at a time when the results for detecting the disease are often inconclusive. Seemingly, it was not known by the parties involved that it was not necessarily a clean final diagnosis.
It's a terrible shame to lose such a brave and caring man and I feel for his family.