Ian Crozier | |
---|---|
Born | 1970or1971(age 54–55) |
Occupation | Physician |
Known for | Surviving Ebola |
Ian Crozier is an American physician who contracted Ebola virus disease in September 2014, while working in West Africa. [1]
Crozier was born in 1970or1971 [2] in the Rhodesian city of Fort Victoria. [3] His family moved to the United States when he was ten years old. [3] He attended Vanderbilt University, earning his M.D. in 1997, [4] and also completed his training in internal medicine and infectious disease at Vanderbilt. [2]
Crozier later moved to Uganda to train doctors in Kampala in treating people with HIV. [4]
Crozier volunteered with the World Health Organization at the Ebola Treatment Unit in Kenema, Sierra Leone beginning in August 2014. [2]
Crozier first began experiencing symptoms of Ebola on September 6. [5] On September 9, he was evacuated by the WHO to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, becoming the third American to be transported there to be treated for Ebola. [3] He remained there for forty days—the longest stay of any ebola patient in the United States—before being released on October 19, 2014. [6] His condition was considered to be worse than the other patients, and he was treated with renal dialysis and plasma from a nurse who had recovered from the disease. In December 2014, he revealed his identity publicly in an interview with The New York Times . He said the reason he wanted to speak out was to thank Emory University for the medical care he received while he was a patient there, and to draw attention to the then-ongoing outbreak. [3] In May 2015, it was discovered that the Ebola virus could still be found in Crozier's eye despite the fact that it had not been detectable in his blood for months. [1]