FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — Another doctor from Sierra Leone who has tested positive for Ebola will be evacuated for medical treatment, an official said Thursday, making her the first citizen of a hard-hit country to be treated abroad.

Dr. Olivette Buck is the fourth Sierra Leonean doctor to contract the disease – and the three others all have died. Arrangements are being made to send her to another country for better treatment, said Health Ministry spokesman Sidie Yahya Tunis without specifying further.

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Health workers wear gear to protect them from Ebola. More than 135 health workers have died in West Africa’s Ebola outbreak. Sierra Leone and Liberia have been particularly hard hit and officials warn that both countries could see a surge in cases soon. The Associated Press

So far, only foreign health and aid workers have been evacuated abroad for treatment from Sierra Leone and Liberia. The worst Ebola outbreak in history also has hit Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, and has been blamed for more than 2,200 deaths across West Africa.

The disease is taking a particularly heavy toll on health care workers, whose jobs put them at high risk because Ebola is only transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of people showing symptoms, or dead bodies. More than 135 health workers have died in the outbreak so far, exacerbating shortages of doctors and nurses in countries that already had too few medical workers to begin with.

Sierra Leone and Liberia have been especially hard hit, and officials have warned that both countries could see a surge in cases soon.

Sierra Leone is expecting to uncover potentially hundreds of new cases when volunteers go house to house looking for the sick during a three-day lockdown later this month. The World Health Organization has said Liberia could see many thousands of new cases in the coming weeks.

The tremendous fear surrounding the disease and the extreme measures used to contain it – like the cordoning off of entire towns for days – has led to sharp criticism of Liberia’s government and even calls for the president to step down. But Brown urged Liberians to unite, warning that if they didn’t, “this virus will consume all of us.”

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