Guinea authorities on Saturday buried a Cuban man who died of malaria while working in the West African nation to help battle the killer Ebola virus.
Jorge Juan Guerra Rodriguez, 60, was an administrator with a team of Cuban medical personnel sent to West Africa last month to stem the spread of the virus. He died of cerebral malaria on Oct. 26, the Guinean government and Cuban officials said.
His funeral in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, was attended by work colleagues and aid workers, as well as Cuban and Guinean officials, a journalist at the ceremony said.
“We will always remember him and we pray for the repose of his soul because he died on the soil of Cuba’s friend, Guinea,” government spokesman Albert Damantang Camara said.
The Cuban Ministry of Health said Rodriguez had not been in contact with Ebola patients, but he was given two tests for the virus, both of which were negative.
Rodriguez was initially treated for diarrhea, a symptom of both malaria and Ebola, before his health rapidly deteriorated and he suffered multiple organ failure.
The economist, from Sancti Spiritus in central Cuba, traveled to Guinea on Oct. 6 and began showing signs of illness on Oct. 12.
Cuba has sent about 250 doctors and nurses to West Africa — 165 of them to Sierra Leone — to fight Ebola and plans to deploy more than 450 medical personnel there.
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