The Lagos State Government said on Monday that it had identified no fewer
\nthan 59 people who had contacts with the Liberian who died of Ebola Virus
\nin the state, Mr Patrick Sawyer.<\/p>\n
Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, said at a news conference in Ikeja
\nthat the contact tracing became imperative to ascertain any possible
\ntransmission of the virus by the victim.<\/p>\n
Idris said the identified contacts comprised 44 hospital and 15 airport
\ncontacts, including the Nigerian Ambassador to Liberia.<\/p>\n
He said 20 of the contacts had been screened and that none of them had so
\nfar been found to be infected with the virus.<\/p>\n
He, however, said the contacts did not include those he might have been
\nwith on his flight to Nigeria on July 20, as the airline had yet to
\nrelease the passenger manifest for investigation.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cThe airline manifest has not been provided by the airline as at
\nthe time of this report and therefore, the precise number of passenger
\ncontacts is yet to be ascertained, especially as two flights were involved
\n(Monrovia-Lome and Lome-Lagos).\u201d<\/p>\n
He urged Nigerians not to entertain fears about Sawyer\u2019s case as the state
\nand Federal Governments were doing everything possible to prevent any
\noutbreak in the country.<\/p>\n
Idris said the deceased\u2019s body had been decontaminated, using 10 per cent
\nsodium hypochlorite and cremated with the permission of the Government of
\nLiberia.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cA cremation urn has been prepared for dispatch to the family.
\nThe vehicle containing the remains have also been decontaminated while the
\nhospital in which he died on July 25 has been demobilised .\u201d<\/p>\n
Idris said the state Ministry of Health had designated an isolation ward
\nat the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba, for case management, adding
\nthree other centres were under way.<\/p>\n
The commissioner urged residents to report people with abnormal cases of
\nbleeding and fever to the appropriate authorities for intervention, as
\nhigh fever with bleeding from all body openings were symptoms of the
\ndisease.<\/p>\n
Idris also urged residents to always keep their environments clean and
\nmaintain good personal hygiene as Ebola virus spreads easily in dirty
\nenvironments.<\/p>\n
Also speaking, the Director, National Centre for Disease Control, Prof.
\nAbdul-Salami Nasidi, warned against the consumption of bats and monkeys as
\nthese animals had been established to be the original sources of Ebola.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cThis is time for those bat-eating and monkey-eating communities
\nto be careful now. Ebola started from the eating of chimpanzees. How the
\nvirus got to the monkey, nobody knows yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this is the time to be careful about the eating of monkeys and bats.
\nThe Ebola threat is high in West Africa and people should start taking
\nprecautions.\u201d<\/p>\n
President of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, also
\nwarned Nigerians against the unsupervised burial of people who died from
\nsuspected Ebola case.<\/p>\n
He said 40 per cent of cases in high risk countries were transmitted from
\nvictims bodies, stressing that an Ebola corpse was deadlier than the
\npatient.<\/p>\n
Special Adviser to the Governor on Public Health, Mrs Yewande Adeshina,
\nurged traditional healers to collaborate with the government in checking
\nEbola threats by reporting suspicious cases for the right intervention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Lagos State Government said on Monday that it had identified no fewer than 59 people who had contacts with the Liberian who died of Ebola Virus in the state,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n