Cuban health worker sent to West Africa to fight Ebola dies of malaria

In this Sept. 24, 2014 photo, nurse Dalila Martinez, trainer of the Cuban medical team to travel to Sierra Leone, enters a tent during a practice drill at a training camp, in Havana, Cuba. Cuba's health ministry is sending more than 160 health workers to help stop the raging Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone in early October. They will stay for six months. (AP Photo/Ladyrene Perez, Cubadebate) (ap)

HAVANA – Cuba says a member of a medical team it sent to fight Ebola in West Africa has died of malaria.

According to state newspaper, Granma, Jorge Juan Guerra Rodríguez, 60, died in Guinea on Oct. 26 from cerebral malaria, a complication of the parasitic infection that severely and sometimes fatally damages the brain.

The newspaper said two tests for Ebola turned up no sign of the disease.

Cuba sent 165 medical workers to Sierra Leone this month, followed by a second group of 83 who went to Guinea and Liberia last week. Guerra, who the newspaper said was trained as an economist, was a member of the advance team sent to Africa before the doctors were dispatched.

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.