NEW YORK — Anne Deborah Atai-Omoruto, a Ugandan doctor who went to Liberia at the height of the Ebola epidemic in 2014 and helped turn the tide in the battle against the disease, died May 12 in Kampala, Uganda. She was 59.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, her daughter Acom Victoria said.
Dr. Atai-Omoruto, at the request of the World Health Organization, arrived in Liberia in July 2014 with a team of 14 Ugandan health workers she had gathered.
At the time, the outbreak had reached the capital city, Monrovia; nongovernmental organizations were pulling their workers out of the country; and many governments were unwilling to send medics. Eventually, 4,810 people in Liberia died of the disease and 10,678 were infected, making the country the hardest hit in the region.
Dr. Atai-Omoruto and her team began training more than 1,000 Liberian health workers on how to manage Ebola patients and protect themselves from infection.
She also managed a large treatment unit known as the Island Clinic, a joint initiative of the Liberian government and the WHO.
“Everything was in disarray and everybody was running away — she came in and stepped up to the plate,’’ said Dorbor Jallah, who was the national coordinator for the Ebola task force in the early months of the response.
After the Island Clinic opened, hundreds of patients were transferred there from holding centers throughout the city. To accommodate the influx, Dr. Atai-Omoruto pushed beds closer together and put mattresses in the corridors, creating space to accommodate more than 200 patients; the clinic’s original capacity was 120.
Liberia registered the highest number of deaths in the region. Of the 28,616 reported cases of the virus, 10,678 were in Liberia.
When clinic workers threatened to protest over a lack of hazardous-duty pay, Dr. Atai-Omoruto persuaded them to stay on the job while pushing the government to respond.
“She said, ‘Work for your people, don’t let your people die,’ ’’ said Jerry T. Williams, the clinic’s chief of security.
Dr. Atai-Omoruto was born on Nov. 22, 1956, in Kumi Town, in eastern Uganda, to Edisa Lusi Atai-Omoruto and David Livingstone Aisu, who were both primary school teachers.
She attended Dr. S.N. Medical College in Jodhpur, India. She completed her master’s degree in medicine at Makerere University College of Health Sciences in Kampala, and became a teacher and chairwoman of the department of family medicine.
Dr. Atai-Omoruto had helped treat patients during cholera and earlier Ebola epidemics, including one in Kibaale, Uganda, in 2012, before she went to Liberia.
In addition to her daughter Acom Victoria, she leaves her father; four other children, Francis Nsubuga, Dorothy Kiyai, James Ariong, and Elizabeth Mary Atai; and three siblings, Francis Omoruto, Rose Mary Imongot and Okurut Kaaka.
Dr. David Kaggwa, a Ugandan pediatrician who worked alongside Dr. Atai-Omoruto at the Island Clinic, said she was known for her no-nonsense style.
“She was fearless throughout the epidemic,’’ he said in a phone interview. “Her style of work was aggressive and unrelenting, and in the process she didn’t win favor with some people in the government and the WHO.’’
But the people she treated appreciated her care and her emotional support.
