Second nurse tests Postive to Ebola, moved back to Lagos

A second nurse who treated Liberian American Patrick Sawyer has tested positive to Ebola virus diseases, becoming the 11th Nigerian confirmed to have contracted the disease. The nurse was in primary contact with Sawyer, and her evading surveillance in Lagos to go to her new husband in Enugu sparked panic that she could have introduced […]

A second nurse who treated Liberian American Patrick Sawyer has tested positive to Ebola virus diseases, becoming the 11th Nigerian confirmed to have contracted the disease.
The nurse was in primary contact with Sawyer, and her evading surveillance in Lagos to go to her new husband in Enugu sparked panic that she could have introduced the virus there.
But the health ministry has confirmed she was not exhibiting Ebola symptoms during her travel to Enugu and therefore could not have infected anyone.
Health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu also said the nurse contacted health officials when she began showing symptoms and was transported in an ambulance with her husband back to Lagos.
At least 21 people she is thought to have come in contact with were placed under surveillance in Enugu but 15 of them were let go after they were determined not to have had contact with the nurse.
“As at yesterday, we were following up on 21 of them. But after very stringent and rigorous interview, we found out that 15 did not qualify as contacts, because people who probably stayed far away from the subject [nurse] claimed they were contacts,” Chukwu told an Ebola briefing Thursday morning.
At least nine secondary contacts under surveillance in Lagos were released in recent days, after going through a required 21-day period without showing symptoms, pushing their numbers from 177 to 169.
Meanwhile eight Ebola-positive people on treatment (nearly all of them healthworkers) are expected to get an experimental Nanosilver drug, provided by a Nigerian scientist as early as Thursday evening, said Chukwu.
Health workers managing their cases at the isolation treatment unit in Lagos will determine drug dosage to use and monitor outcome.
Chukwu said treatment and use of Nanosilver will follow all protocols by the National Health Research Ethics Committee, which decided this week that using experimental drugs to combat Ebola emergency would not violate ethics.
But Nigeria remains in touch with the World Health Organisation to get a foothold on other experimental drugs to be donated to the WHO, said Chukwu.
The announcement came a day after an official of ECOWAS who met with Sawyer died from the virus, becoming the third victim of Ebola in Nigeria after Sawyer.
Meanwhile, Aliko Dangote Foundation donated N150m in funding to support the emergency operations centre for Ebola in Lagos.
The foundation’s chief executive officer Adiembong Adaga said it chose the centre because it was “the critical platform through which government is coordinating all that is happening to ensure the crisis is contained. It is also a platform that provides transparency.”