Dr. Rick Sacra, the 51-year-old family physician from Worcester who contracted the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia five weeks ago, has recovered and was released from Nebraska Medical Center Thursday morning in Omaha. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that there is no sign of the Ebola virus remaining in his bloodstream.

“Right now I have to focus on getting well,’’ said Dr. Sacra at the press conference. He said at this point, he thinks he contracted Ebola while helping a patient deliver a baby through c-section in Liberia. At this point, no one else at the hospital where Dr. Sacra worked has contracted Ebola.


“When I got back to Liberia in early August, women literally had nowhere to go to deliver their babies,’’ said Dr. Sacra. “We were doing a lot of c-sections, and sometimes people don’t have the classic Ebola syptoms you were looking for. I know it was one of the people I did the c-section on. We were wearing standard protective gear, but obviously something didn’t go right somewhere.’’

Dr. Sacra said that although he is taking his recovery one day, one week at a time, he said the odds that he will return to work in Liberia “are pretty high.’’

Rick and his wife, Debbie, were good-humored and laughing as they spoke about Dr. Sacra’s treatment and recovery with his medical team. The couple hadn’t seen each other since Dr. Sacra left for Liberia this summer, but they said they were able to have a nice reunion after many months this morning and were excited to return home. Dr. Sacra said the first thing he wants to do at home is take his dog for a walk.

“No, maybe you’ll sleep,’’ responded Debbie.

With regard to his recovery, the answer is still uncertain around what made the difference in his treatment for the Ebola virus. The doctors at Nebraska Medical Center said Dr. Sacra was given the experimental drug, as well as a blood transfusion from Dr. Kent Brantly, the other physician who contracted Ebola who recently recovered at Emory Hospital in Atlanta, Ga., as well as supportive care. The numbers from the drug are too small to determine whether it was effective.


“We’ve done a lot of training for this, but we certainly had to make some little changes as we went along,’’ said Dr. Phil Smith, the physician in charge of Dr. Sacra’s care at Nebraska Medical Center. “We learned from Emory and the CDC and other places with experience. There’s a lot of information sharing going on right now.’’