| Toronto Star | - |
LAGOS,
NIGERIA—Nigerian authorities rushed to obtain isolation tents Wednesday
in anticipation of more Ebola infections as they disclosed five more
cases of the virus and a death in Africa's most populous nation, where
officials were racing to keep the ...
Nigeria reports 5 new Ebola cases, as WHO considers declaring global emergency
All five patients were reported to have had contact with an infected man who died last month, Nigerian authorities said, as they raced to contain the spread of the outbreak.
Youssouf Bah
/ The Associated Press
Police in Conakry, Guinea, secure the area around a man who
collapsed in a puddle of water on the street on Wednesday. People would
not approach him out of fear he may have been suffering from the Ebola
virus. The man lay in the street for several hours before being taken to
an Ebola control centre for assessment.
LAGOS,
NIGERIA—Nigerian authorities rushed to obtain isolation tents Wednesday
in anticipation of more Ebola infections as they disclosed five more
cases of the virus and a death in Africa’s most populous nation, where
officials were racing to keep the gruesome disease confined to a small
group of patients.
The five new Nigerian
cases were all in Lagos, a megacity of 21 million people in a country
already beset with poor health-care infrastructure and widespread
corruption, and all five were reported to have had direct contact with
one infected man.
Meanwhile, the World
Health Organization began a meeting to decide whether the crisis, the
worst recorded outbreak of its kind, amounts to an international public
health emergency. At least 932 deaths in four countries have been blamed
on the illness, with 1,711 reported cases.
More at thestar.com
In recent years, the
WHO has declared an emergency only twice, for swine flu in 2009 and
polio in May. The declaration would probably come with recommendations
on travel and trade restrictions, as well as wider Ebola screening. It
would also be an acknowledgment that the situation is critical and could
worsen without a fast global response.
The agency did not
immediately confirm the new cases reported in Nigeria. And Nigerian
authorities did not release any details on the latest infections, except
to say they all had come into direct contact with the sick man who
arrived by plane in Lagos late last month.
With the death toll
mounting in the region, Liberia’s president announced a state of
emergency late Wednesday and said it may result in the suspension of
some citizens’ rights. She lamented that fear and panic had kept many
family members from sending sick relatives to isolation centres.
“Ignorance and
poverty, as well as entrenched religious and cultural practices,
continue to exacerbate the spread of the disease,” President Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf said.
And in Sierra Leone,
where enforcing quarantines of sick patients also has been met with
resistance, some 750 soldiers deployed to the Ebola-ravaged east as part
of “Operation Octopus.”
Ebola, which causes
some victims to bleed from the eyes, mouth and ears, can be transmitted
only through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is
sick — blood, semen, saliva, urine, feces or sweat.
Millions in Lagos live
in cramped conditions without access to flushable toilets. Signs posted
across the city warn people not to urinate in public.
Kenneth Akihomi, a
47-year-old worker installing fibre-optic cable, said he was carefully
washing his hands to avoid infection. But he said most people were
relying on faith to stay healthy.
“They’re not
panicking. They are godly people,” he said. “They believe they can pray,
and maybe very soon there will be (a) cure.”
The revelation of more
infections also came amid a public sector doctors’ strike in Nigeria
that began in early July. So far, health workers monitoring the latest
Ebola patients are still on the job.
Nigeria is the fourth
West African country to be hit by the Ebola outbreak since it first
emerged in March in the remote tropical forests of Guinea. The disease
then spread to neighbouring Sierra Leona and Liberia before reaching
Nigeria, where it surfaced shortly before the government drew criticism
for its response to the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by
Islamic militants back in April. The girls are still missing.
Nigerian authorities
said Tuesday that doctors did not suspect Patrick Sawyer was suffering
from Ebola when the 40-year-old Liberian-American arrived by plane late
last month in Lagos, where the streets are a bewildering mix of wealth
and abject poverty, awash in luxury SUVs and decrepit buses.
Sawyer, who worked for
the Liberian government in Monrovia and had a wife and three young
daughters in Minnesota, was on a business flight to Nigeria when he fell
ill. Officials say a nurse who treated him has died and five others are
sick with Ebola, including a doctor involved in his care.
West African countries
pledged at a meeting in July to step up their surveillance at airports
and borders following the start of the outbreak. But the early symptoms
of Ebola — fever, muscle aches and vomiting — are similar to much more
common tropical diseases such as malaria.
The spectre of the
virus spreading through Nigeria is particularly alarming, said Stephen
Morse, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School
of Public Health.
“It makes you nervous when so many people are potentially at risk,” he said.
Authorities in Liberia
said Sawyer’s sister had recently died of Ebola, though Sawyer said he
had not had close contact with her while she was ill.
In announcing Sawyer’s
death, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu maintained late last month that
Nigerian officials had been vigilant in isolating him.
“It was right there
(at the airport) that the problem was noticed because we have maintained
our surveillance,” he told reporters. “And immediately, he went into
the custody of the port health services of the federal Ministry of
Health, so there was no time for him to mingle in Lagos. He has not been
in touch with any other person again since we took him from the
airport.”
Chukwu’s comments were
at odds with remarks made Tuesday by the Lagos state health
commissioner, who said doctors did not suspect Ebola immediately and
identified Sawyer as a possible case only after he had been hospitalized
for about a day.
Sawyer, who had a
fever and was vomiting on the plane, was coming from the infected
country of Liberia but had a layover in Togo. As a result, officials may
not have initially known his original point of departure, and it was
unclear whether he was travelling on a Liberian or American passport.
Experts say people
infected with Ebola can spread the disease only after they show
symptoms. Since the incubation period can last up to three weeks, some
of the Nigerians who treated Sawyer are only now showing signs of
illness.
The national health
minister on Wednesday said special tents would be used to establish
isolation wards in all of Nigeria’s states. Authorities were setting up
an emergency centre in Lagos to deal with Ebola and expected the
facility to be “fully functional” by Thursday, he said.
Also Wednesday, the
Spanish Defence Ministry said a medically equipped plane was ready to
fly to Liberia to bring back a Spanish missionary priest who has Ebola.
At the same time, Saudi officials reported a suspected Ebola death,
underscoring the risk of the disease spreading by air travel even as
many airlines curtail their flights to the most infected cities.
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