Latest reports indicate that two more people have been infected with the Ebola virus in Nigeria raising the number being treated in Africa’s most populous country to 10.
This according to a report posted on Twitter moments ago by Reuters
Africa, quoting Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu.
Details of the new cases of the deadly disease are still being expected as at this moment, but it was gathered that one of the new cases involved a nurse in Lagos.
Meanwhile, the Ebola virus has been confirmed to have killed two people in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, including a Liberian man, Patrick Sawyer, who introduced the virus to the city.
* Health workers treating a patient of Ebola virus
The second victim, who died on 5 August, 2014, was a nurse who tended to the late Liberian businessman.
Prior to this latest report, Chukwu had stated last week in Lagos that eight people suspected of contracting the disease are being investigated while 139 people are under surveillance.
Ebola is one of the world’s deadliest diseases that has historically killed as many as 90 percent of those who contract it. The current outbreak has a fatality rate of about 60 percent, killing almost 1,000 people as of today, according to the World Health Organization, WHO.
Details of the new cases of the deadly disease are still being expected as at this moment, but it was gathered that one of the new cases involved a nurse in Lagos.
Meanwhile, the Ebola virus has been confirmed to have killed two people in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, including a Liberian man, Patrick Sawyer, who introduced the virus to the city.
* Health workers treating a patient of Ebola virus
The second victim, who died on 5 August, 2014, was a nurse who tended to the late Liberian businessman.
Prior to this latest report, Chukwu had stated last week in Lagos that eight people suspected of contracting the disease are being investigated while 139 people are under surveillance.
Ebola is one of the world’s deadliest diseases that has historically killed as many as 90 percent of those who contract it. The current outbreak has a fatality rate of about 60 percent, killing almost 1,000 people as of today, according to the World Health Organization, WHO.
The vast majority of cases of the virus, which can cause bleeding
from bodily orifices and skin, are in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
Only last week, Nigerian federal government declared Ebola a national emergency in which “everyone is at risk.”
It was gathered that WHO would convene a panel of medical ethicists this week to explore the use of experimental treatments for Ebola after an experimental antibody cocktail developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. was used to treat two infected American health workers.
Nigeria is awaiting the outcome of its application to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for access to the experimental drug, Chukwu said.
“The government here in Nigeria has said that if it works, please can you extend it to us,” he said after a meeting with officials of the CDC, the WHO and the U.S. Embassy in Lagos. “We are waiting for the outcome of the application.”
Doctors in government hospitals, who went on strike last month, have yet to call off the action,” Chukwu said.
The WHO has declared Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak as the most complex outbreak leading to public health emergency.
The four countries affected so far in West Africa include Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.
Only last week, Nigerian federal government declared Ebola a national emergency in which “everyone is at risk.”
It was gathered that WHO would convene a panel of medical ethicists this week to explore the use of experimental treatments for Ebola after an experimental antibody cocktail developed by Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc. was used to treat two infected American health workers.
Nigeria is awaiting the outcome of its application to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for access to the experimental drug, Chukwu said.
“The government here in Nigeria has said that if it works, please can you extend it to us,” he said after a meeting with officials of the CDC, the WHO and the U.S. Embassy in Lagos. “We are waiting for the outcome of the application.”
Doctors in government hospitals, who went on strike last month, have yet to call off the action,” Chukwu said.
The WHO has declared Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak as the most complex outbreak leading to public health emergency.
The four countries affected so far in West Africa include Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria.
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