US Doc Sick with Ebola 'Slightly Improved,' Eating

The wife of Rick Sacra, the SIM missionary doctor who contracted the deadly Ebola virus while serving in Liberia, says her husband's condition has "slightly improved."

"Rick is very sick and weak, but slightly improved from when he arrived yesterday. He asked for something to eat and had a little chicken soup," Debbie Sacra said.

The 51-year-old missionary arrived early Friday morning at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where he's being treated at the hospital's isolation unit. 

Sacra is a physician who lives in Boston with his wife Debbie and two children.  He regularly travels to the West African nation of Liberia, one of the areas hardest hit by the deadly Ebola virus, to work in a missions hospital there.

Debbie Sacra, along with the couple's son, got to visit the ailing missionary for 25 minutes on Saturday afternoon.

She said she was "relieved to see his face and hear his voice again" and expressed her gratitude to the Med Center staff for everything they were doing to care for him.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Sacra made it clear she wanted to keep the focus on West Africa's Ebola crisis.

"We don't want this story to be about Rick," she said.  "The story is the crisis in West Africa.  That is what is most important.  The world is coming to this fight late."

So far, Ebola has killed nearly 2,000 people.