FG confirms Ebola death in Lagos

PROF. ONYEBUCHI CHUKWU
Federal Government Friday confirmed the Ebola Virus death that claimed one Mr. Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian man suspected to have imported the deadly Ebola virus into Lagos.
Announcing this in Abuja, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, said the patient was subjected to thorough medical evaluation where laboratory investigations were also carried out and his blood sample taken to the advanced laboratory at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, WHO reference laboratory in Darkar Senegal and CDC laboratory in Atlanta, USA, which confirmed the diagnosis of Ebola Virus Disease.

It will be recalled that the confirmation of the outbreak of the virus in Lagos on Thursday, July 24 by the Lagos State Ministry of health caused panic across the country.
This was after Nigerians were alerted on 22nd July, 2014, on a suspected case of Ebola Virus Disease, in Lagos involving a 40-year old man travelling from Monrovia, Liberia to Nigeria on Asky Airline via Lome to Lagos.
The passenger was said to have  fever, and vomiting with  diarrhea on arrival at the airport and was handed over by the airline to the Port health Services of the Federal ministry of Health, who quickly isolated him and transported him  to the hospital to avoid contact with the general public.
But after the confirmation of the results by other laboratories outside Nigeria and despite the urgent specialized barrier nursing care provided for the patient in a Lagos Hospital, the patient unfortunately passed away in the early hours of Friday.
As part of effort to contain the spread of the virus, the health Minister said certain measures had already been taken by the Ministry, which include: tracing and investigating all the passengers the patient came with; placing all ports of entry under red alert in line with WHO regulations; equipped all government tertiary health institutions in Nigeria to handle any emergency that may arise from the disease and providing supportive drugs and medical consumables  at all entry points and stepping up collaboration with all the States of the federation.
‘‘I want to assure the general public that the FMOH is presently working with other ministries, agencies and international organizations as well as the Lagos State Government to prevent the possible spread of the virus.

-vanguard