On 17 October 2020 Saba played the flute in a chamber piece by Telemann in the town of Bsharri in a church there as part of his work to raise money for the conservancy that had been damaged in the huge port explosion on 4 August 2020 which left 200 people dead and caused considerable damage. Three days later he was infected with COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lebanon at a board meeting at the conservatory. He was hospitalized and later transferred to the non-Covid ICU at the American University of Beirut Medical Center when he was considered no longer contagious. A few days later he suffered septic shock after contracting a "superbug", was intubated, but later died from COVID-19 complications, on 4 December 2020 at the age of 62.