A surgeon who was infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone will be flown to Omaha, Nebraska, for treatment this weekend, CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook has confirmed.

CBS NEWS - A surgeon who was infected with Ebola in Sierra Leone will be flown to Omaha, Nebraska, for treatment this weekend, CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook has confirmed.

The doctor-- who has not been identified -- is from Sierra Leone but is a permanent resident of the U.S.

Two prior patients -- American aid worker Dr. Rick Sacra and videojournalist Ashoka Mukpo -- were successfully treated for Ebola at the Nebraska Medical Center.

Sierra Leone is one of the three West African nations at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, along with Liberia and Guinea.

New cases are also reported in Mali, months after the country was thought to be Ebola-free.

At least five doctors in Sierra Leone have died after treating Ebola patients.

The virus has killed more than 5,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. More than 14,000 patients have contracted Ebola since the first cases were reported in March, making it the largest outbreak ever.

However, Dr. David Nabarro, who is heading up the United Nations efforts to fight Ebola, said last week that there are signs the rate of infections is slowing and that he was "incredibly optimistic that in the coming months we could certainly see a diminution, and hopefully in the next year the outbreak will come to an end."

The U.S. military is scaling back its planned Ebola response deployments from 4,000 troops to 3,000, due to a greater-than-expected number of contractors available in Liberia to provide support such as construction work.