TRIBUTES poured in for Cuban doctor Felix Baez Sarria today after he became the first medic from the island to contract Ebola.

Dr Baez was one of a 165-strong Cuban medical team sent to combat the outbreak in Sierra Leone. Cuba has also deployed a team of 53 to Liberia and 38 to Guinea.

He came down with a fever on Sunday and later tested positive for the disease, which has killed over 5,000 people in west Africa since the current outbreak began.

Dr Baez’s fellow countrymen saluted his efforts on social media.

“Wishing you a speedy recovery, Cuban hero!” William Becerra posted on newspaper Granma’s website, while Modesto Reyes Canto wrote: “Whoever risks his life in this noble mission deserves all our respect and solidarity.”

Cuba’s Health Ministry said the doctors, nurses and support staff battling the killer illness receive “weeks of instruction in protective measures and equipment,” with an extra three weeks of training provided in Africa before they start work.

But there was no way of totally shielding medics from risk when they were treating such an infectious virus, it added.

Solidarity messages also poured in from Cuban doctors working in other countries. The socialist country has around 50,000 medical professionals providing free treatment in developing countries at any one time.

Grechin Brooks Carballo, a doctor posted to Brazil, compared the courage of doctors battling Ebola to that of the revolutionaries who stormed the Moncada barracks in 1953 in one of the first acts of the Cuban revolution.

He sent Dr Baez “a big hug” from his medical team and assured him of “our faith in the recovery of our colleague.”

Dr Baez is being treated by British medics in Africa but the World Health Organisation says he will shortly be transferred to Geneva for specialist treatment.

nThe flood of goodwill for Cuban doctors has been in stark contrast to a less than enthusiastic response from Africans to Bob Geldof’s fundraising reprise of the patronising dirge Do They Know It’s Christmas?

A storm of online criticism has swept the continent, with critics describing the song as “dripping with the White Man’s Burden.”