UPDATE: Nigeria confirms 7 Ebola cases, one dead

Seven people have been confirmed infected with Ebola virus after testing positive, the health ministry announced Wednesday.One of those infected died on Tuesday, becoming the first recorded death of a Nigerian since the outbreak of Ebola and its reach into Nigeria.The victim is identified simply as “one of the nurses that attended to the Liberian” […]

Seven people have been confirmed infected with Ebola virus after testing positive, the health ministry announced Wednesday.
One of those infected died on Tuesday, becoming the first recorded death of a Nigerian since the outbreak of Ebola and its reach into Nigeria.
The victim is identified simply as “one of the nurses that attended to the Liberian” Patrick Sawyer whose death sparked the entry of Ebola into the country.
“The other five cases are currently being treated at the isolation ward in Lagos,” said health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu at a hasty briefing early Wednesday in Abuja.
All were primary contacts of Sawyer, he added.
Nigerian government has asked the US Centre for Disease Control to extend the experimental drug being administered to the two Americans infected in Liberia.
Both are reported to be responding to treatment.
The ministry has asked state governments to open up more isolation sites that could be used to treat an unknown number of people.
As yet Lagos is still dealing with the outbreak in its isolation wards and both ministers of health are expected to visit to “assess the situation on ground.”
Chukwu said government needed additional health personnel to strengthen the team currently managing the situation in Lagos, alongside isolation tents and counselling for families affected.
He spoke of “arrangement to procure tents to quicken the pace of providing isolation wards in all states” and setting IP “special team to provide counselling and psychosocial support to patients, identified contacts and their families.”
Personnel from federal hospitals in Lagos area will be joined by officials from Nigeria Centre for Disease Control toset up a round-the-clock emergency operations centre, expected to be one fully functional by Thursday.
It is expected to also include officials from National Primary Health Care Development Agency, the US Centre for Disease Control, WHO, UNICEF and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

EARLIER…

A nurse who treated Patrick Sawyer has died from Ebola virus fever after six more people tested positive, the health ministry announced.

All six who tested positive were in primary contact with the Liberian-American Sawyer who died in a Lagos hospital late July.

The nurse is the first Nigerian to die from Ebola.

Nigerian government has asked the US Centre for Disease Control to extend the experimental drug being administered to the two Americans infected in Liberia.

Both are reported to be responding to treatment.

Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu, at a hasty briefing this morning, demanded state governments to open up more isolation sites to contain people who might need to be treated or isolated.

He said the government would stop at nothing to contain the spread of Ebola.