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Tag: Ebola

  • Breaking: Ebola kills Lagos nurse

    Breaking: Ebola kills Lagos nurse

    One of the nurses that attended to the Liberian Ebola victim, Patrick Sawyer, is dead.

    The female nurse who was yet to be named died on Tuesday at Obalande Lagos.

    She is the first known Nigerian to die of the virus.

    Sawyer died on July 25, few days after his arrival in the country.

    He was sighted at the airport with signs of the virus at the point of entry into the country.

    He was quickly isolated and a test conducted on him later confirmed that he had Ebola.

    The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, confirmed this to journalists in Abuja Wednesday morning.

    Prof. Onyebuchi had on Monday disclosed that the 70 people who had contact with the Liberian are under surveillance. Out of this figure, eight are already under quarantine.

    Briefing journalist on the latest development, the minister also said that five other cases are currently being treated at the isolation ward in Lagos.

    Onyebuchi said, “Yesterday, 5th August, 2014, the first known Nigerian to die of the EVD was recorded and this was one of the nurses that attended to the Liberian.

    “The other five cases are currently being treated at the isolation ward in Lagos.”

    He said all the Nigerians diagnosed with Ebola were primary contacts of the index case ─ the late Sawyer.

    “The 24/7 emergency operations centre will be fully functional tomorrow. It will be headed by Dr Faisal Shuaibu as the incident manager.

    “He will later today lead a six-man inter-agency team drawn from the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to Lagos to complete the setting up of the centre,” he added.

    They will be joined by the other personnel from Lagos State government and the federal hospitals in the Lagos area as well as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

    “We are making arrangements to procure isolation tents to quicken the pace of providing isolation wards in all states of the federation and the federal capital territory.

    “We are also setting up a special team to provide counselling and psychosocial support to patients, identified contacts and their families,” he said.

    The minister reassured Nigerians the government “was working hard to ensure the containment of the outbreak.”

  • ‘Ebola mortality rate expected to rise’

    Experts have said they expect the death rate in the world’s worst outbreak of Ebola to increase once more victims succumb and the grim data is tallied up.

    Latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) reveal 1,603 cases of Ebola in the West African outbreak and 887 deaths – giving a death rate of just over 55 percent.

    That is well below the 78.5 percent average death rate over 14 past outbreaks of the same virus – called the “Zaire strain” after the former name of the Democratic Republic of Congo where it was first detected in 1976, Reuters says.

    In some outbreaks the rate was up to 90 percent, according to WHO data.

    Experts said death rates for Ebola outbreaks can rise as the disease runs its course, which is what they now expect.

    “This is partly a statistical thing about collecting death events, and also partly about the maturity of the outbreak,” said Derek Gatherer, a virologist at Britain’s University of Lancaster who has been following the outbreak since it started in February.

    “The nearer we get to the end of the epidemic, the closer we would expect the fatality rate to correspond to the Zaire Ebola average of 80 percent,” he told Reuters.

    Ebola can take up to a month to kill its victims, said Ben Neuman, an expert in viruses at Britain’s Reading University.

    Already, the death rate in Guinea, where the infection was first detected, has reached 74 percent. The overall regional outbreak mortality figure is brought down by lower death rates in countries that were more recently hit: 54 percent in Liberia and around 42 percent in Sierra Leone.

  • Ebola campaign tops Rotary Ojo projects

    We intend to take this campaign to maternity homes, primary health care centres, schools – Lagos State University (LASU), Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (AOCOED) and secondary schools – to create awareness and save lives from the dreaded virus.” 

    In compliance with the global emergency required to create awareness to sensitise and save lives against the deadly Ebola Virus, international humanitarian organisations are gradually keying into the campaign.

    The Rotary Club of Ojo, Lagos, is making the campaign for the prevention of Ebola virus its priority.

    The club said it took the decision to comply with the global emergency required to create awareness on the disease and save people from contracting the deadly virus.

    It has earmarked N5 million to implement health and disease control-related projects in the next 12 months for Ojo Local Government residents and its environs.

    Mr Odusanya Felix Olasunkanmi spoke in Lagos after his induction as the 29th President of the club.

    He said the club would hire medical experts and social welfare workers to widen the campaign.

    According to him, Rotary Club has begun distributing fliers, detailing the symptoms to the residents of Ojo community and environs.

    Olasunkanmi said: “We intend to take this campaign to maternity homes, primary health care centres, schools – Lagos State University (LASU), Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education (AOCOED) and secondary schools – to create awareness and save lives from the dreaded virus.”

    The president said the club would donate drugs and other health materials to Ojo health centres, child care seminar and birth kike to expectant mothers.

    He said it would also rebuild a block of classrooms and an administrative office at L. A. Primary School in Okoludun, donate a vocational/empowerment programme and 20 sewing machines to youths in Ojo, among others.

  • Lagos ‘has eight suspected’ Ebola cases

    Lagos has eight suspected cases of Ebola, all in people who came into contact with Nigeria’s first victim who died last month, the health commissioner said on Tuesday, with one case confirmed.

    Authorities have been monitoring anyone who came into close contact with Patrick Sawyer, a Liberia and United States citizen who died of Ebola in Lagos last month shortly after arriving at the airport.

    The second confirmed case was a doctor who looked after him, Reuters reports.

    Jide Idris also said a further six people who had made contact with Sawyer had been quarantined but were not showing symptoms.

  • World Bank gives $200m Ebola assistance

    World Bank gives $200m Ebola assistance

    The World Bank yesterday announced up to $200 million in emergency assistance to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

    The funding will also help those countries to improve their public health systems and cope with the epidemic’s economic impact, the Washington-based lender said in a statement.

    The countries’ resources and health systems have been strained by the worst outbreak of the virus since its discovery four decades ago.

    Guinea’s economic growth could fall by a full percentage point to 3.5 per cent due to the epidemic, according to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s initial assessment.

    “I have been monitoring (Ebola’s) deadly impact around the clock and I’m deeply saddened at how it has ravaged health workers, families and communities, disrupted normal life and has led to a breakdown of already weak health systems in the three countries,” World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

    The global bank said its money would go toward medical supplies, salaries for medical workers and to help communities dealing with the financial hardship caused by the virus.

    Rural workers in the three countries hit with Ebola have fled affected areas, hitting agricultural production, though the food supply has not been affected for now, the bank said.

    The epidemic has also slowed cross-border commerce and grounded flights across the region, leading to lower revenues and financial inflows.

    Mining production could also decline, if more skilled expatriate workers leave the affected regions, the bank said.

    The World Bank’s executive board must still approve the emergency lending. Kim said he would brief the board as soon as possible to seek their approval.

  • Anxiety at Lagos Airport over arrival of ‘suspected‘ Ebola infected victims

    Anxiety at Lagos Airport over arrival of ‘suspected‘ Ebola infected victims

    There was anxiety at the arrival hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos arrival hall yesterday as Port Health and aviation security officials engaged in an argument on whether an alleged inbound passenger suspected to have been affected by the deadly Ebola Virus should be allowed into the country.

    The passenger suspected to have been infected by the deadly Ebola Virus was said to have been discovered on arrival by officials of the Port Health Service attached to the terminal.

    The suspected passenger  according to a source close to the Port Health arrived the country aboard one of the Nigerian domestic airlines from the West African coast.

    The source claimed that a hot argument ensued between the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) personnel at the airport and the health officials over an attempt to allow the infected passenger come into the country while another party insisted that he should be returned to his point of departure.

    The source however revealed that since the outbreak of the disease in Nigeria about two weeks ago, the port health officials at the airport had deployed equipment meant for screening of every passengers arriving into the country especially from the West African countries.

    According to the source; “I don’t specifically know where the plane came from, but the patient was discovered during screening of inbound passengers by the port health officials at the airport. As at now, we don’t know what to do with him. Some of the officials want him return to base while others are insisting that as a Nigerian, he has the right to arrive into the country.

    “The aircraft was probably coming from Accra, Ghana onboard the airline. I just want our officials to be careful with the way they interact with some of the passengers.”

    When contacted the General Manager, Corporate Communications, FAAN, Mr. Yakubu Dati said there was nothing like that.

    Since the deadly disease was imported into the country through a Liberian, Patrick Sawyerr  who flew into the country aboard a Togolese airline, Asky, Nigerians have been living with fear.

    Following the scourge, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) suspended the flight operations of Asky Airlines for about a week, before the suspension was lifted last Friday.

    Arik Air had earlier suspended its flight operations to Liberia and Sierra Leone, the two countries where the disease had claimed almost a thousand people since it broke out in April this year.

    Since the presence of the deadly disease, security officials at the Lagos Airport have been mandated to wear safety garments when processing passengers to avoid being infected.

     

  • Ebola emergency

    Ebola emergency

    •All hands must be on deck to deny the virus a place in Nigeria

    It is alarming, to say the least, that the deadly Ebola virus has officially found its way into the country.  The horrifying news of the death of Patrick Sawyer, a naturalised American of Liberian origin, from Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) at First Consultants Medical Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos, on July 25, was a wake-up call.

    This incident, no doubt, reflected the scale of the epidemic that has thrown the West African sub-region into understandable apprehension, which is highlighted by the fact that an emergency committee of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is scheduled to meet on August 6 – 7 to determine whether it constitutes a public health crisis of international concern, and to recommend measures to tackle it.

    Of relevance are startling figures released by WHO, which indicate that so far, related to the current outbreak in West Africa, 1,201 cases of Ebola have been recorded, including 672 deaths. The virus, which first appeared in Zaire in 1976, causes a haemorrhagic fever that can kill infected people in a week, although patients reportedly begin to show symptoms within three weeks of infection.

    It is a positive development that medical experts have been able to identify the possible sources of the virus and how it is transmitted. Current knowledge indicates that the animal-borne virus can infect humans through contact with or consumption of the host animal; this is apart from the possibility of infection from the blood or bodily fluids and secretions of people who have the virus.

    Certainly, it is reassuring that officials of federal health and aviation agencies as well as state governments across the country, particularly Lagos, Oyo, Ondo,  Edo, Bayelsa, Ebonyi and Anambra, have launched enlightenment campaigns and taken preventive measures against the virus.

    Fortunately, Sawyer’s case, the first known Ebola death outside the three West African countries initially linked with the outbreak of the disease, was treated with uncommon and creditable professionalism, which demonstrated that the country’s health personnel, despite peculiar contextual challenges, are not necessarily lagging behind in the application of global standards of practice. Before it surfaced in Nigeria, EVD was limited to Guinea, where it is believed the epidemic began, Liberia and Sierra-Leone; and it fits the narrative that the United States-based Sawyer was coming from Liberia to attend an international  conference in Calabar, Cross Rivers State.

    It is instructive that the 40-year-old Liberian diplomat who reportedly fell sick on board a Nigeria-bound plane was subjected to a thorough diagnostic process that eventually revealed his health status. A statement by the centre’s medical director, Dr. B.N. Ohiaeri, and its senior consultant physician, Dr. A. S. Adadevoh, said: “We immediately isolated/quarantined the patient, commenced barrier nursing and simultaneously contacted the Lagos State and Federal Ministries of Health to enquire where further laboratory tests could be performed as we had a high index of suspicion of possible Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).”  The commendable extent of the centre’s diagnostic efforts was defined by the fact that it went as far as the WHO Regional Centre Lab in Senegal.

    Perhaps more importantly, it is significant to note that the centre also said: “We refused for him to be let out of the hospital in spite of intense pressure.”  Considering how it all ended in Sawyer’s death after a five-day hospitalisation, it is unimaginable what could have followed if he had been left to interact with others outside the hospital, with the high possibility of spreading the virus which kills 90 percent of infected people.

    With this background, there are good reasons to commend the hospital for taking proactive steps, which include, “orderly temporary shutdown of the hospital with immediate evacuation of in-house patients; the appropriate professional removal of the body and its incineration; and full decontamination exercise.”

    However, it must be emphasised that the situation calls for continuous vigilance not only by the people, but also by the political and health authorities. Ebola must not find a place in the country.

  • Ebola: Customs on red alert at borders

    Ebola: Customs on red alert at borders

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has placed its officers on red alert at the borders over the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

    Some of the borders are in Seme and Idi-Iroko in Lagos State, Saki, (Oyo) and Jibia (Katsina).

    For instance, the Customs Area Controller (CAC), Seme Border, Comptroller Willy Egbudin and his health officers, it was gathered, have met with border protection agencies on how to prevent those  with the disease from entering the country as directed by Customs Comptroller-General (CCG) Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi.

    The CCG, sources said, gave the directive after the pan-African airline ASKY, suspended its flights into Liberia and Sierra Leone. The move also followed the death of one of its passengers from the virus after he landed in Nigeria from Liberia.

    Seme  Customs Public Relations Officer Mr Ernest Olottah said Customs officials were in touch with other agencies to ensure they work in concert to prevent border breach by carriers of EVD.

    The Customs, he said, took the proactive steps in the national interest, adding that the agency also took the step after the United Kingdom reported that a man from Nigeria via Paris was rushed to the hospital with Ebola-related symptoms.

    “Every Customs officer working at the Seme and other borders is on alert, and we have one of the best trained health officers for infectious disease system and they have been deployed to arrest the situation,’’ Olottah said.

    Ebola, he said, is a contagious disease, with 90 per cent mortality rate which deserves everybody’s attention and prevention because there is no treatment for the virus.

    He said: “It has flu-like symptoms and a runny nose, then it develops into a haemorrhagic disease which includes bleeding in the eyes, internal organs and skin hemorrhages.

    “Ebola is transferred between humans via bodily fluids. It could be as simple as wiping a tear off a person’s face or as intimate as the transfer of saliva or semen.”

    Olottah added: “Frighteningly, the virus can still be transferred once a person has died and that is the more reason Customs at border stations cannot go to sleep.

    “As far as we are aware, no Nigerian living in the country is infected by the disease.

    “The Area Controller does not want Ebola to get into an urban hub, such as Lagos because it would be pretty difficult to stop if we fail to act now.”

  • ‘No Ebola case in Ogun’

    There is no case of Ebola virus infection in Ogun State, the government said yesterday.

    The government was reacting to a rumour that two cases of Ebola had been discovered in the state.

    The rumour created panic in Abeokuta, the state capital. Residents refused to shake hands and eating in public.

    Commissioner for Health Olaokun Soyinka said two health workers, who had contact with the late Liberian victim of the virus, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, have not shown any symptom of Ebola virus infection.

    He said the health workers work in Lagos, but until their contact with the Liberian, lived in Ogun.

    Soyinka said the health workers were not in Ogun State and were being closely monitored.

    He said: “There are two health workers who had contact with the Liberian victim. They have been isolated and we are monitoring them. We are appealing to residents not to panic.”

    The commission urged residents to avoid eating bat, monkey and antelope meat; wash their hands with soap and water regularly and watch out for Ebola symptoms, such as fever, weakness and vomiting, among others.

    He said the state had trained health workers on how to handle Ebola cases, urging residents to be wary of visitors from countries battling Ebola outbreak.

  • Ebola death toll hits 887, says WHO

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the death toll from the worst record outbreak of Ebola has reached 887.

    This is an increase of 158 since the global health body released figures on July 31.

    WHO, in a statement yesterday, said there have been over 1,600 cases of Ebola since the disease emerged in Guinea earlier this year.

    The news comes as Nigeria announced yesterday that it had confirmed a second case in Africa’s most populous nation. The patient is a doctor who treated the man who died in Nigeria last month.

    According to WHO, there have been 358 deaths in Guinea, 255 deaths in Liberia, 273 deaths in Sierra Leone and one in Nigeria.

    The United States plans to send 50 health experts to West Africa to contain the Ebola outbreak that has left hundreds of people dead in three countries.

    “This is the biggest and most complex Ebola outbreak in history,” Dr. Tom Frieden, a director at the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement.

    “It will take many months, and it won’t be easy. But Ebola can be stopped. We know what needs to be done. CDC is surging our response, sending 50 additional disease control experts to the region in the next 30 days.”

    Frieden said the 50 experts from the CDC will work to combat the outbreak and help implement stronger systems to fight the disease.

    The Ebola virus causes viral hemorrhagic fever, which refers to a group of viruses that affect multiple organ systems in the body and are often accompanied by bleeding.

    Early symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness, muscle pain, headaches and a sore throat. They later progress to vomiting, diarrhoea, impaired kidney and liver function – and sometimes internal and external bleeding.

    Though the U.S. had not treated an Ebola patient until last week, the CDC has spearheaded efforts to prepare for the deadly virus. It helped create an isolation unit at Emory University Hospital, which is being used to treat American doctor Kent Brantly, who contracted Ebola in Liberia and was evacuated to the facility in Atlanta over the weekend. A second American patient, Nancy Writebol, is being evacuated from Liberia to the same isolation unit. She is scheduled to arrive today.

    Emory is one of four U.S. institutions capable of providing such treatment.

    But in the nation’s hardest-hit and not as prepared, the reality is grim. Even in the best-case scenario, it could take three to six months to stem the epidemic in West Africa, Frieden said.

    Ebola spreads through contact with organs and bodily fluids such as blood, saliva, urine and other secretions of infected people.

    It has no cure, and the most common approach is to support organ functions and keep up bodily fluids such as blood and water long enough for the body to fight off the infection.

    So far, the outbreak has been confined to West Africa. And it has affected health care providers as well.

    Ebola claimed the life of a director at a hospital in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. Dr. Patrick Nshamdze tested positive on July 29 after falling sick for two weeks. He died on Saturday.

    In Sierra Leone, where government officials have asked citizens to stay away from work, the military has deployed at least 750 medical officials to 13 locations, military spokesman Col. Michael Samura said.

    Health officials are screening incoming and outgoing passengers at the country’s main international airport with a device that takes people’s temperature from their eyes at a distance.

    Anyone showing signs of fever is taken away to have their blood tested for Ebola.