4 unforgettable facts about Umar Khan, the doctor who gave up his life for Ebola patients

HE LIVED — AND DIED — A HERO

Khan was still alive — albeit sick from Ebola infection — when Sierra Leonean minister for health, Miatta Kargbo, declared him “a national hero”, praising his “tremendous efforts” in fighting a disease that had killed 206 people in the country at the time.

If there was any doubt that he had quickly become a national icon, president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Koroma, showed up at the hospital where Khan was receiving treatment. Little did Koroma know that had he postponed the visit by a day, he would have passed up an unrecoverable opportunity to personally express gratitude to the man who, to a large extent, was the only reason why scores of people are still alive.

4. HE WAS A ‘DOCTOR WITHOUT BORDERS’

It is no coincidence that Khan died in the custody of Doctors Without Borders; he was one himself, having worked within and outside Sierra Leone when his passion demanded.

His medical journey began at the University of Sierra Leone, where he studied Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery (MBChB) in 2001.

As a young tropical medicine/infectious disease physician, he worked for two years as a medical officer at the directorate of disease prevention and control, at the ministry of health and sanitation.

From 2005 till 2010, he served as physician in charge of HIV/AIDS services at KGH; and from 2006 to 2010, he was physician consultant for the Mano River Union Lassa Fever Network, WHO/Tulane University. He was concurrently contracted by then United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) as a contract physician.

Between 2010 and 2013, he travelled beyond the borders of Sierra leone to Ghana on a residency in Internal Medicine at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana. He also worked at the Connaught Hospital in Freetown during his time as a consultant.

Until his death, he was an associate lecturer at the department of medicine of his alma mater. Sadly, he was was appointed only in January 2014, so he never quite knuckled down to passing on his immense medical knowledge to others.

Khan, like every other human, is indispensable, and yet another doctor will step into his shoes the way he did after the death Lassa Fever-occasioned death of Dr. Conteh.

But will the more-than-100 lives whose recovery from Ebola he spearheaded ever forget him? Impossible.