LIBERIA SHUTS SCHOOLS TO TACKLE EBOLA OUTBREAK

Liberia’s government has announced that it is
closing down all schools across the country
to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.
Some communities would be placed under
quarantine as well, President Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf said.
Non-essential government workers will be
sent home for 30 days and the army
deployed to enforce the measures.
The number of people killed by the virus in
West Africa has now reached 672, according
to new UN figures.
The BBC’s West Africa correspondent Thomas
Fessy says treatment facilities have
reportedly been overwhelmed in the Liberian
capital Monrovia.
Ebola virus disease (EVD)
Symptoms include high fever, bleeding
and central nervous system damage
Fatality rate can reach 90%
Incubation period is two to 21 days
There is no vaccine or cure
Supportive care such as rehydrating
patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting
can help recovery
Fruit bats are considered to be virus’
natural host
Some wards have already filled up, forcing
health workers to treat some patients at their
homes.
President Sirleaf said that Friday 1 August
would be a non-working day in Liberia to
allow for the disinfection of all public
facilities.
“All non-essential staff – to be determined by
the heads of ministries and agencies – are to
be placed on 30 days’ compulsory leave,” she
added.

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LAGOS GOVERNMENT LOCATES 59 CONTACTS WITH DEAD LIBERIAN VICTIM

The Lagos State Government said on Monday
that it had identified no fewer than 59 people
who had contacts with Mr Patrick Sawyer, the
Liberian who died of Ebola Virus in the state.
Dr Jide Idris, the Commissioner for Health,
said at a news conference in Ikeja that the
contact tracing became imperative to
ascertain any possible transmission of the
virus by the victim.
Idris said the identified contacts comprised
44 hospital and 15 airport contacts, including
the Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia.
He said 20 of the contacts had been screened
and that none of them had so far been found
to be infected with the virus.
The commissioner, however, said the
contacts did not include those he might have
been with on his flight to Nigeria on July 20,
as the airline had yet to release the
passenger manifest for investigation.
“The airline manifest has not been provided
by the airline as at the time of this report and
therefore, the precise number of passenger
contacts is yet to be ascertained, especially as
two flights were involved (Monrovia-Lome
and Lome-Lagos).”
The commissioner urged Nigerians not to
entertain fears about Sawyer`s case as the
state and Federal Governments were doing
everything possible to prevent any risk to the
country.
Idris said that the deceased’s body had been
decontaminated, using 10 per cent sodium
hypochlorite and cremated with the
permission of the Government of Liberia.
“A cremation urn has been prepared for
dispatch to the family. The vehicle containing
the remains have also been decontaminated
while the hospital in which he died on July 25
has been demobilised .”
Idris said that the state Ministry of Health had
designated an isolation ward at the Infectious
Disease Hospital, Yaba, for case
management, adding three other centres
were under way.
The commissioner urged residents to report
people with abnormal cases of bleeding and
fever to the appropriate authorities for
intervention, as high fever with bleeding from
all body openings were symptoms of the
disease.
Idris also urged residents to always keep
their environments clean and maintain good
personal hygiene as Ebola virus spreads
easily in dirty environments.
Also speaking, Prof. Abdul-Salami Nasidi, the
Director, National Centre for Disease Control
(NCDC) warned against the consumption of
bats and monkeys as these animals had been
established to be the original sources of
Ebola.
“This is time for those bat-eating and
monkey-eating communities to be careful
now. Ebola started from the eating of
Chimpanzees. How the virus got to the
monkey, nobody knows yet.
“But this is the time to be careful about the
eating of monkeys and bats. The Ebola threat
is high in West Africa and people should start
taking precautions.”
In a remark, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, the
President of the Nigerian Academy of
Science, also warned Nigerians against the
unsupervised burial of people who died from
suspected Ebola case.
He said 40 per cent of cases in high risk
countries were transmitted from victims`
bodies, stressing that an Ebola corpse was
deadlier the patient.
On he part, Mrs Yewande Adeshina, the
Special Adviser to the Governor on Public
Health, urged traditional healers to
collaborate with the government in checking
Ebola threats by reporting suspicious cases
for the right intervention. (NAN)

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DEADLY EBOLA VIRUS SPREAD TO NIGERIA BY PLANE AND SIERRA-LEONE LOOK FOR KIDNAPPED PATIENT

The Ebola virus that has already killed 660 people across West
Africa has spread to Nigeria after a Liberian man boarded a
plane to the country, the most populous in the continent.
He managed to board the flight despite of having a high fever.
Once on the plane he vomited, before dying in Nigeria.
Upon arrival in the country’s capital Lagos - a megacity home
to 21 million people - the 40-year-old had been moved to an
isolation ward.
Believed to be a government official with the finance ministry,
he had recently lost his sister to Ebola in Liberia, health
officials there said. Authorities are now investigating anyone
who may have come into contact with him.
Nigerian health minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said it was the first
case of Ebola to be confirmed in Nigeria since the start of the
current outbreak in the region. The disease has already hit
Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, infecting 1,093.
In Sierra Leone, officials are hunting the first known resident of
the capital Freetown to test positive for the disease after the
family of the woman forcibly removed her from a hospital in the
city.
Saudatu Koroma, 32, a resident of the densely populated
Wellington neighbourhood, had been admitted to an isolation
ward while blood samples were analysed, health ministry
spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis. The results came back on
Thursday.
“The family of the patient stormed the hospital and forcefully
removed her and took her away,” Tunis said. “We are searching
for her.”
Fighting one of the world's deadliest diseases is straining the
region's weak health systems, while a lack of information and
suspicion of medical staff has led many to shun treatment.
According to health ministry data and officials, dozens of
people confirmed by laboratory tests to have Ebola are now
unaccounted for in Sierra Leone, where the majority of cases
have been recorded in the country's east.
There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, which causes diarrhea,
vomiting and internal and external bleeding. It can kill up to 90
percent of those infected, although the mortality rate of the
current outbreak is around 60 percent.
The West African outbreak is the first time that Ebola, which
was first discovered in what is now Democratic Republic of
Congo in 1976, has appeared in heavily populated urban areas
and international travel hubs.

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