Three Patients Now In Ebola Treatment Centre -Rivers

Rivers State Government has said three Ebola patients have been moved
to the state's quarantine centre at Oduoha in Emohua Local Government
Area of the state.

The state's Commissioner for Health, Dr. Samson Parker, made this
known at a news conference in Port Harcourt on Sunday.

Parker said those taken to the treatment centre were a pharmacist at
Sam Steel Hospital, a doctor who worked with the late Dr. Iyke Sam
Enemuo and a nurse at Good Heart Hospital, where Enemuo allegedly
died.

Sam Steel Hospital is owned by late Enemuo while he died at Good Heart Hospital.

However, he said the patients had not been confirmed, stressing that
the government was awaiting the result of their tests by Sunday.

As for the wife of deceased doctor, the commissioner said she tested
positive for the virus and is currently in a stable condition in
Lagos.

The commissioner said, "I have been telling you before now that almost
200 persons have been line-traced. Out of this number, we are still to
be in touch with about 60 of them.

"But 50 high risk contacts have been identified. Because of stigma and
the rest of them, these persons are not coming up, we are still on
them.

"We have three patients at the treatment centre now. The pharmacist at
Sam Steel Hospital, the doctor that was working with him and also a
lady at Good Heart Hospital while Dr. Enemuo was there."

It is not clear when the three patients were taken to the quarantine centre.

When our correspondent visited the centre on Saturday, he noticed that
the centre was not ready.

He observed that reconstruction was going on at former Emohua Primary
Health Centre which had been renamed as Ebola quarantine centre.

As of 11am on Saturday when our correspondent was leaving the
quarantine centre, no single patient had been brought to the centre.

But the commissioner insisted the patients were taken to the centre
after our correspondent had left.

Parker said, "I am briefing you now. Operations are by the minute.
They are three now. They won't let you in now. That place is
restricted. Probably when you went there, there were none, but I am
telling you now that I was there when they were brought in."