"I am going to die now. And I pray that no one should ever have to die of this disease again."

The person of the week this week is Dr. Jonah Kule. Dr. Kule passed away in December 2007 in Uganda while treating Ebola patients in and around his hometown. The manner of his death makes him a hero, but also the stories related by others in regards to him as a doctor.

Read the story about Dr. Kule and you realize how much he cared. He returned to his hometown to treat communities that most Ugandan doctors never think about going, he is one of very few from his hometown to ever go to medical school, and he was seen as supremely trustworthy by his patients. He made the initial investigation into the cases near his town, which were initially thought by others to be cholera. As he went to investigate further he said: "If I die, I die."

He believed it to be typhoid and talked to the communities about further hygiene and dispelling beliefs of witchcraft. He then treated a patient that had recently visited that same area and who soon died. Blood results from the CDC proved the disease to be a new strain of Ebola. A few days later Kule checked himself into a hospital in Uganda's capital thinking he had early signs of malaria, but as symptoms changed realized it was realized it was much worse and he died.

The new strain is evidently less severe as normal Ebola, presenting without the major bleeding seen in Ebola in most cases. This explains the multiple misdiagnoses in his case and led to a much lower death count than usual. But it still took the life of Dr. Kule. The saddest part of it all is the he seems to have been the type of doctor perfect for helping the infected area.