Dan
Nwomeh, a Ministry of Health spokesman, said Thursday that a doctor in Port
Harcourt has died from Ebola fever.
The
doctor was infected he treated a primary contact of Patrick Sawyer, the
Liberian-American who brought the dreaded disease to Nigeria.
His
death brings the number of Ebola fatalities in Nigeria to 6.
The
total number of recorded cases had risen by two to 15, the other one being the
wife of the doctor who is showing Ebola symptoms and whose test results are
awaited.
Nwomeh
said 70 contacts of the doctor were now under surveillance in Port Harcourt.
The
news came two days after Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said
authorities had
“thus far contained” the Ebola outbreak in the country, with only one case left
being treated in an isolation ward in Lagos.
All
Nigerian cases have been direct or indirect contacts of Sawyer, who collapsed
on arrival at Lagos airport on July 25 and later died but was treated before
anyone knew what he had.
Meanwhile,
the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the Ebola outbreak in West Africa
has taken 1,552 lives out of 3,069 known cases in four countries and “continues
to accelerate”.
“More
than 40 percent of the total number of cases have occurred within the past 21
days. However, most cases are concentrated in only a few localities,” the
United Nations health agency said in a statement ahead of launching its new
strategic plan for tackling the world’s worst Ebola outbreak.
Businessday
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