Malaria kills Cuban Ebola virus volunteer in Guinea

A Cuban man working in Guinea to help Ebola virus patients has died. Not from the virus, but from malaria. The Guinean government and Cuban officials said he died of cerebral malaria. He was buried on Saturday.

The deceased, Jorge Juan Guerra Rodriguez, 60, was a member of Cuban medical team that flew into the West African country to help fight the deadly virus. He was an administrator with the team.

A spokesman of the Guinean government, Albert Damantang Camara, was quoted by AFP as saying:“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”.

Rodriguez was given two tests for Ebola and he tested negative.

Rodriguez, an economist, arrived Guinea on October 6 and started to show signs of illness on October 22.

Since the Ebola outbreak, Cuba has sent about 250 doctors and nurses to West Africa where he virus has killed almost 5000 people.

Malaria, which kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world yearly, share certain symptoms with Ebola which include fever, aches, vomiting and diarrhoea. While Ebola is passed by contact with bodily fluids, malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes.