Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa, Prof. Victor Inem, has said cured
Ebola victim could be re-infected with the same virus if fresh contact
was made with carriers.
He stated this on Wednesday at a one-day train the trainer workshop on
Ebola prevention and control organised by the University of Calabar
Teaching Hospital for the medical stakeholders.
Speaking on the overview of the EVD Outbreak in West Africa
Sub-Region, he said, "Even when victims of EVD have been cured, there
are still possibilities that they can re-contract the virus if they do
not avoid body fluids from sufferers and animals believed to be
carriers of the virus.
"It is very possible for cured victims to re-contract the virus when
he brings himself closer again with sufferers through sex, their other
body fluids, eating of some animals which are reservoirs of the virus
or through processes of burning victims."
Inem cautioned that cured victims should distance themselves from
sufferers, avoid sex or wear condoms.
He warned against embalmment and unnecessarily prolonged funeral
services in parts of Nigeria where corpses were often touched or
kissed over and over again.
Inem said the current panic should not be over-blown because there
have been several epidemics since Influenza in 1918 and that "this
Ebola epidemic will equally subside and go," he said.
Earlier, the chief medical director of UCTH, Dr. Thomas Agan, said
there was dire need to be on the alert even though the EVD was not in
the state.
Agan commended the Federal Government for taking proactive measures,
adding that the UCTH was taking all the necessary protective measures
in case it was confronted with the challenge of the virus.
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