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| EBOLA VIRUS |
(NIGERIA) The Lagos State Government said on Monday that it
had identified no fewer than 59 people who had contacts with Mr Patrick Sawyer,
the Liberian who died of Ebola Virus in the state.
Dr Jide Idris, the Commissioner for Health, said at a news
conference in Ikeja that the contact tracing became imperative to ascertain any
possible transmission of the virus by the victim.
Idris said the identified contacts comprised 44 hospital and
15 airport contacts, including the
Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia.
He said 20 of the contacts had been screened and that none
of them had so far been found to be infected with the virus. The commissioner,
however, said the contacts did not include those he might have been with on his
flight to Nigeria on July 20, as the airline had yet to release the passenger
manifest for investigation.
“The airline manifest has not been provided by the airline
as at the time of this report and therefore, the precise number of passenger
contacts is yet to be ascertained, especially as two flights were involved
(Monrovia-Lome and Lome-Lagos).”
The commissioner urged Nigerians not to entertain fears
about Sawyer`s case as the state and
Federal Governments were doing everything possible to prevent any risk to the
country.
Idris said that the deceased’s body had been decontaminated,
using 10 per cent sodium hypochlorite and cremated with the permission of the
Government of Liberia.
“A cremation urn has been prepared for dispatch to the
family. The vehicle containing the remains have also been decontaminated while
the hospital in which he died on July 25 has been demobilised.”
Idris said that The state Ministry of Health had designated
an isolation ward at the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba, for case management,
adding three other centres were under way.
The commissioner urged residents to report people with
abnormal cases of bleeding and fever to the appropriate authorities for
intervention, as high fever with bleeding from all body openings were symptoms
of the disease.
Idris also urged residents to always keep their environments
clean and maintain good personal hygiene as Ebola virus spreads easily in dirty
environments.
Also speaking, Prof. Abdul-Salami Nasidi, the Director,
National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) warned against the consumption of
bats and monkeys as these animals had been established to be the original
sources of Ebola.
“This is time for those bat-eating and monkey-eating
communities to be careful now. Ebola started from the eating of chimpazees. How
the virus got to the monkey, nobody knows yet.
“But this is the time to be careful about the eating of
monkeys and bats. The Ebola threat is high in West Africa and people should
start taking precautions.”
In a remark, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, the President of the
Nigerian Academy of Science, also warned Nigerians against the unsupervised
burial of people who died from suspected Ebola case.
He said 40 per cent of cases in high risk countries were transmitted
from victims` bodies, stressing that an Ebola corpse was deadlier the patient.
On her part, Mrs Yewande Adeshina, the Special Adviser to
the Governor on Public Health, urged traditional healers to collaborate with the government in
checking Ebola threats by reporting suspicious cases for the right
intervention. (NAN)
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