Ebola: How Escapee Port Harcourt index Case Was Traced

Shedding light on the escape and tracing of the Port Harcourt index
case, Adesina said he was under home monitoring at the time of escape.

"We started bringing people for quarantine. There is a model
established with Ebola contact tracing called home monitoring because
patients are not contagious until they get sick. So we keep them at
home and have people monitoring them and check on them all the time.
And that is how we found out that the Port Harcourt index case bolted.

"Day 3 of our contact list was when he was lost to care. He switched
off his phone, he wasn't at home, and we couldn't find him. We got the
SSS involved and he was traced to Port Harcourt, at the time we found
him, he was heading back to Lagos. He was another case that for
whatever reason, he went to look for something. We believe he would
have been symptomatic.

(Photo: Security men at the state government owned Braithwaite
Memorial Hospital, BMH testing body temperature)

The government has continued to carry out measures to reduce the
chances of the spread of the disease, with some group of people in the
different local government, going to house and check people's
temperature.

"We are now at peace that we have been able to silent the Ebola
outbreak, because we have not seen any new Lagos infection and
suspect. If the man had not gone to Port Harcourt we would have been
singing bye bye to Ebola by now," she said.

Doctors as soldiers

"We are like soldiers going to war and when you are drafted as a
doctor you have taken the Hippocratic Oath, you are at war with
disease. I don't expect any special compensation for being a doctor
because that is what I stand up for. Do soldiers get special
compensation when they go to war? Once you put on your uniform you go
to war. You don't start negotiating before you go to war. So a
doctor is at war with Ebola because diseases are our enemies and we
should not be negotiating over what we have taken an oath to do."

Ebola cases exceed 1,900 -- WHO

The number of people killed by the Ebola virus disease (EVD) has
exceeded 1,900, World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General
Margaret Chan has said. She said about 3,500 people had been infected
with Ebola in Guinea, Sierra-Leone and Liberia.

Last week, WHO named six countries that are facing the risk of the EVD
spread: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, and
Senegal. The organisation and its partners are now working with
countries to ensure that full Ebola surveillance, preparedness and
response plans are in place in these countries, it said.

To reduce the probability of the disease spreading elsewhere, the
governments have set up quarantine zones in areas of high transmission
including severely-affected cities in Guinea, Sierra Leone and in
Liberia. This prevents people living in these areas from moving to
other parts of the country and potentially increasing EVD
transmission, WHO said.

Lagos alerts on sale of fake EVD cassettes, test kits

The Lagos State Government has alerted residents on the activities of
some "unscrupulous" people purportedly, hawking "Ebola Cassettes and
Test Kits" to unsuspecting people.

In a statement, Special Adviser on Media to Governor Babatunde
Fashola, Mr. Hakeem Bello, said the fake items which are branded as
"Rapid Response Canada with test results purportedly available in 10
minutes" is a hoax.

Bello said: "There are no Ebola test kits manufactured anywhere in
the world and that the technique for its manufacture does not exist
yet, adding that members of the public should not patronize the
dubious marketers of the products."

Meantime, the state government will today hold a sensitisation
workshop for Principals and Head teachers of public primary and
secondary schools as well as proprietors of public schools in the
state on the deadly Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, and Haemorrhagic Fever,
EHF, and the new school resumption date of October 13, 2014 at the
Blue Roof , Lagos Television premises, Ikeja.

The state Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Olayinka Oladunjoye who
stated this therefore, noted that the workshop would also afford
stakeholders the opportunity of adequately preparing for the
resumption of academic exercise on Monday, October 13, 2014 in view of
the outbreak of the EVD in the country.

WHO to assist Rivers to fight Ebola
Meanwhile the World Health Organisation, WHO has called for
cooperation from the general public to effectively curtail the
spread of Ebola in Rivers state.