Ebola: Envoy, 58 persons had contacts with dead Liberian

The Lagos State Government said on Monday that it had identified no
fewer than 59 people who had contacts with the Liberian who died of
Ebola Virus in the state, Mr Patrick Sawyer.

Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, 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.

He, 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.

He said, "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)."

He urged Nigerians not to entertain fears about Sawyer's case as the
state and Federal Governments were doing everything possible to
prevent any outbreak in the country.

Idris said the deceased's body had been decontaminated, using 10 per
cent sodium hypochlorite and cremated with the permission of the
Government of Liberia.

He said, "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 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, the Director, National Centre for Disease Control,
Prof. Abdul-Salami Nasidi, warned against the consumption of bats and
monkeys as these animals had been established to be the original
sources of Ebola.

He said, "This is time for those bat-eating and monkey-eating
communities to be careful now. Ebola started from the eating of
chimpanzees. 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."

President of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Prof. Oyewale Tomori,
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 than
the patient.

Special Adviser to the Governor on Public Health, Mrs Yewande
Adeshina, urged traditional healers to collaborate with the government
in checking Ebola threats by reporting suspicious cases for the right
intervention.