Lagos doctor infected with Ebola virus

Ebola virus

. 3 health workers show symptoms – Minister

Nigeria has recorded the first Ebola case affecting a local that of a female doctor who treated a Liberian man who died from the virus after his arrival in Lagos two weeks ago.
The Federal Ministry of Health said yesterday three other health workers who participated in the treatment of Mr. Patrick Sawyer have also shown symptoms of having being infected with the virus.
These three, as well as five others who had direct contact with the late Liberian man, have been quarantined, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu told journalists in Abuja yesterday.
Seventy other people—up from 69 last week—with lesser degrees of contact with Mr. Sawyer are on surveillance.
“Today we have the first of those health personnel who have now become Ebola-positive and being treated as such,” the health minister said at a news conference.“Three others who participated in the treatment, who are also symptomatic, have had their samples taken, and hopefully by the end of the day we should have the results of their tests.”
The infected Lagos doctor, whose name has not been released, was diagnosed positive for Ebola at the weekend, hours after two other medical personnel tested negative.
Until Friday, tests on Sawyer’s doctors and others with indirect contact with him were still negative. It can take up to 21 days after exposure to the virus for symptoms to appear.
“But by weekend there were others who also participated in attending to the patient. These other newer (ones) who have not had symptoms developed symptoms over the weekend,” Chukwu said at the regular Ebola briefing in Abuja.

The doctor’s identity will remain undisclosed until officials counsel his family and relatives, authorities said.
Sawyer, an employee of the Liberian finance ministry, had arrived by plane in Lagos from Liberian capital Monrovia after changing planes in Lome, Togo, on July 20.
He was immediately taken to hospital in Lagos and died five days later.
Officials are yet to confirm whether a body flown from Liberia for burial in Anambra State last week was a victim of the Ebola.
There were concerns that this was an Ebola case, prompting authorities to shut down the hospital whose mortuary was used, and to order for tests.
Because of the emergence of Ebola in Nigeria, state health commissioners have been invited to an emergency meeting in Abuja next week with federal health officials.
The meeting will update state health officials on Ebola and other haemorrhagic fevers as Lassa fever.
The Lagos State Government also yesterday confirmed the infection of the female doctor who treated the Liberian man.
Health Commissioner Jide Idris, who spoke at a news conference, denied rumours spreading in Lagos that the affected doctor is dead.
He appealed to striking doctors to resume work and join in fighting the Ebola threat.
Idris also called for volunteers to assist the Rapid Response Team set up by the state government to curtail spread of the disease.
Director of the National Centre for Disease Control, Prof. Abdulsalam Nasidi, also spoke at the Lagos news conference, explaining that the infected doctor had direct contact with the late Sawyer.
“She is not dead as it was being rumoured. She is one among the eight contacts we are monitoring closely,” Nasidi said.
He added that his team will continue carrying tests on the secluded contacts.
Nigeria is the fourth country to report Ebola cases. At least 887 have died in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the World Health Organisation reported yesterday.
Symptoms of the disease include fever, sore throat, muscle pains and headaches. Often nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea follow, along with severe internal and external bleeding in advanced stages of the disease.
The fatality rate in the current outbreak has been about 60 percent. In past outbreaks the fatality rate has been up to 90 percent of those infected with the virus.