Nigeria’s marginal progress in efforts to contain the Ebola Virus Disease
(EVD) is apparently being threatened with the confirmation of a new case in
Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu,
disclosed at a press conference after the second emergency meeting of the
National Council on Health (NCH) Monday in Abuja that the new case brought the
total number of confirmed EVD cases to 17, with six deaths and 271 persons
under surveillance - 72 in Lagos and 199 in Port Harcourt. He said: As of 31st
August, 2014, the total number of cases of EVD in Nigeria stands at 17. The
total number of cases treated at the isolation ward in Lagos State stands at
13. The total number of those discharged is seven. The total number of deaths
among those treated in Lagos is five, and the total number currently under
treatment in Lagos is two and both patients are stable. The minister said the
three confirmed cases not treated in Lagos were: a surviving primary contact of
the index case, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, an Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) Commission official who became symptomatic, evaded surveillance
in Lagos, travelled to Port Harcourt and infected his attending physician.
Presently, he does not have viraemia but other laboratory tests for antibodies
confirm that he had suffered from EVD. He is under quarantine in Lagos at the
moment undergoing further tests to ensure he is totally free from the virus, he
said. Chukwu said the second confirmed case not treated in Lagos was a private
medical practitioner who was infected while treating the ECOWAS Commission
official.
Guardian Newspaper
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