Barely seven days after Mr. Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian, died in a private hospital in Lagos, one of the personnel, who helped him out of the aircraft on his arrival in Lagos, has shown signs of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
The latest victim, who was said to have helped the late Sawyer, but has not yet been named, was among the 59 persons the Federal Government and the Lagos State Government registered to have had contact with the late Sawyer immediately on his arrival in Nigeria on Sunday, July 20.
Early symptoms of EVD include fever, headache, chills, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, sore throat, headache and joint pains, while later symptoms include bleeding from the eyes, ears nose, and the mouth as well as the rectum, eye swelling, swelling of the genitals and rashes all over the body that often contain blood. It could progress to coma, shock and death.
As at four days after Sawyer’s death in Nigeria, precisely, Monday, July 27, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said 20 of the 59 people registered to have had contact with Sawyer had been physically screened. He said 50 per cent of these 20 people had type one contact with Sawyer and 50 per cent had type two contact.
Explaining this terminology, the Director, Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Abdulsalam Nasidi, said type one contact means those who had direct one-on-one contact with the late Sawyer, while type two contact refers to those that had contact with those who had direct contact with Sawyer.
However, he said the committee working on the Ebola virus disease emergency was following the World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline which recommended that only persons who showed signs of the EVD symptoms should be screened.
Efforts to get confirmation about the latest on the person showing signs of the EVD from Nasidi failed. A text message to his phone asking for confirmation was not responded to.
Source: Sun
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