Ebola doctor who came back from the dead

Dr Melvin Korkor may have survived an Ebola infection, but the stigma surrounding the disease means he faces a constant challenge educating the public about the deadly outbreak

Dr Melvin Korkor was one of six members of staff at Liberia's remote Phebe Hospital to contract the Ebola virus last month, he is the only one still alive today.

The virus spread to the hospital after a woman from nearby Lofa County - one of the worst-affected areas - came in for treatment for diarrhoea.

She told staff that she was from a less at-risk place, but by the time they found out that she was lying, it was too late.

Three days later, some of the nurses who had treated the woman developed very high fevers, tested positive for Ebola and had to be taken to an isolation centre in Monrovia.

Dr Korkor began "having unusal feelings," similar to the symptoms of malaria and asked to be tested. His blood sample was confirmed positive and he, too, was put in isolation.

I asked the hospital to get an ambulance to take me to Monrovia, and I confidently told them that I was going to come back," he told The Telegraph.

"Then I told my wife get me a Bible and nothing else. She started to cry, but I told her 'no crying, I am coming back'."

Four days later, he was tested again, and this time his sample came back negative, and he was able to return to Bong County.

Although delighted to have survived the ordeal, Dr Korkor has found that the stigma surrounding Ebola means very few of his friends will visit him now that he has returned, for fear that they might contract the virus too.

"I am doing great," he said. "I'm eating very well, and all the nausea and everything I felt before I was taken to the isolation centre has gone.

"I think within myself that I am indeed free of Ebola."