Nigerian doctor contracts virus from Ebola patient
Print Edition
NIGERIAN authorities said yesterday that a doctor in Lagos who treated a Liberian victim of Ebola has contracted the virus, the second confirmed case in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city.
Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu, who confirmed the positive test, said 70 other people believed to have come into contact with the Liberian were being monitored, with eight placed in quarantine.
The confirmed case “is one of the doctors who attended to the Liberian Ebola patient who died”, Chukwu told journalists.
A quarantine unit has been set up in Lagos and blood tests from the three people displaying Ebola-like symptoms have been sent for testing, he said.
Patrick Sawyer, who worked for Liberia’s finance ministry, contracted the virus from his sister before travelling to Lagos for a meeting.
He landed in Lagos on July 20 from Monrovia after switching planes in Togo’s capital Lome.
He was visibly sick upon arrival and taken directly to the First Consultants hospital in the upmarket Lagos neighbourhood of Ikoyi. He died in quarantine on July 25. The hospital was closed indefinitely last week.
The second confirmed case in Nigeria is the latest in the deadliest-ever Ebola outbreak, which has infected 1,440 people and left 826 dead. The other cases are spread across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which has seen 574 cases.
Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma yesterday appealed to his countrymen to fight the deadly epidemic together, warning that “the very essence” of the nation was at stake.
Koroma urged families to ensure that victims were reported to health authorities and asked every Sierra Leonean to take responsibility for raising awareness about the killer virus.
“This is a collective fight. The very essence of our nation is at stake,” he said in a televised address marking a “stay at home day” aimed at recalibrating the response to the outbreak.
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