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Former Ebola patient Dr. Richard Sacra talks to his wife, Debbie, during in a news conference at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb., Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014. Sacra, who was treated at the medical center the last three weeks, has left his room in the biocontainment unit and will head home soon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that two separate blood samples taken from Sacra 24 hours apart show the Ebola virus is no longer in his bloodstream.

(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The Massachusetts physician Rick Sacra, who was infected with the Ebola virus, while working in the West African country of Liberia, and flown, for treatment, to The Nebraska Medical Center three weeks ago, was released Sept. 25, and is expected to head home to Holden.

"The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has declared me safe and free of the virus," Sacra said at a news conference. "Thank God, I love you all!"

With his wife, Debbie, seated by his side, the 51-year-old physician, who was kept in a bio-containment unit to minimize the spread of any infected fluids, told the hospital staff, "God has used you to restore life to me. I am so grateful."

He noted that, while he was successfully treated with a variety of therapies, the Ebola epidemic continues to "spin out of control" in West Africa. Nearly one-quarter of Sierra Leone is under quarantine, and, according to the World Health Organization, there have been 2,917 deaths, in West Africa, since the current Ebola outbreak began, in February, in Guinea.

Besides Guinea, Sierra Leone and Libera, deaths have been reported, in Nigeria, and Senegal. There have been a total of 6,242 reported cases of the virus, spread through infected bodily fluids, like blood, with that number expected to dramatically increase in these countries, with health systems ill-equipped to contain infections diseases. Ebola has not been common to West Africa. President Obama announced plans recently to sent 3,000 troops to build 17 treatment centers, and educate healthcare workers. One estimate, by the U.S. government, is that between 550,000 and 1.4 million people, in West Africa, could become infected, by year's end, by the virus, for which there is no cure.

Sacra, who is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was with SIM USA, in Liberia, and had been working for a month, in obstetrics, at EWLA (Eternal Love Winning Africa) Hospital, outside of the capital of Monrovia, when he contracted the virus. Two other Americans, Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, also contracted the virus in Liberia, and were flown back to the United States. They have recovered. They also worked for the North Carolina-based missionary organization.

According to a statement on the UMass school's website, Sacra, a 1989 graduate, "has spent much of his career working overseas, including nearly two decades in Liberia."

"He has a faculty appointment at UMMS, as an assistant professor of family medicine and community health, as a function of teaching in the medical school’s residency program at the Family Health Center of Worcester, when he returns to the U.S. for periodic respite visits.”

Sacra lives in Holden, with his wife and three children.