Port Harcourt Ebola victim dies

A few hours after Nigerians were rejoicing over the news that yet another Ebola patient had been successfully managed and discharged from hospital, the ministry of health has announced that a separate victim has been killed by the virus.

Dan Nwomeh, special assistant on media and communication to the minister of health, said the latest victim died at an isolation ward in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers state, having contracted the disease while receiving treatment at the hospital where a doctor died on August 22.

The doctor himself contracted the disease while treating an ECOWAS official that had contact with Mr. Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American who brought the disease into the country.

“The [late] Port Harcourt-based doctor was not managed by us but… [he] died from Ebola Virus Disease,” he said.

“The elderly patient who was in the same hospital where that Port Harcourt doctor was managed but who was admitted and managed by us at the Port Harcourt isolation ward unfortunately didn’t make it because she also had other problems including heart problems. So she has passed on.”

Nwomeh said Nigeria was in effective control of the situation, as only two patients were being isolated in Lagos and Rivers, the only states where confirmed cases of Ebola have been recorded in the country.

“The total number of cases successfully managed and discharged from our isolation ward in Lagos stands at eight.

“Eight Nigerians have been successfully treated in Lagos and are at home now, reunited with their families. The number of Ebola Virus Disease patients currently under treatment, as I speak to you, are two. One in Lagos and one in Port Harcourt.”

Explaining that the latest death brings to seven the total number of people who have died of the virus, Nwomeh said 291 persons were under surveillance in the country.