Nigeria has 12 confirmed cases of the Ebola virus, up from 10 at last
week’s count, of which five have almost fully recovered, the Health
Ministry said Monday.
It said in a statement that 189 people in Lagos and six others in the
southeastern city of Enugu were under surveillance. The death toll
remains four, it said.
A doctor who had recovered had been discharged from hospital, the ministry said.
The Ebola virus has killed more than 1,000 people in Guinea, Sierra
Leone and Liberia since the outbreak began in March, and four people
have died in Nigeria since it was brought to Lagos by a Liberian man
July 20.
“Patients under treatment have now been moved to the new 40-bed
capacity isolation ward provided by the Lagos state government,” the
Health Ministry statement said.
It added that experimental drugs were in the process of being cleared
for the treatment of Ebola, although one, nano silver, had been
rejected because it did not meet requirements.
Fighting the disease in Nigeria is complicated by the fact that
doctors are on nationwide strike. The ministry of health sacked 16,000
doctors Thursday after they refused to end their strike in the midst of
an Ebola epidemic.
Healthcare workers fighting to stop the disease in overcrowded and ill-equipped clinics often succumb to Ebola themselves.
The World Health Organization says more than 170 healthcare workers
have been infected and at least 81 have died. The death toll from Ebola
is still climbing and the U.N. health agency faces questions over
whether it should have declared the outbreak a “public health emergency
of international concern” before Aug. 8. (Reuters)
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