Lagos
State Government yesterday said the number of persons suspected to have
had contact with the late Liberian, Mr Patrick Sawyer, who died of
Ebola Virus Diseases in Lagos, has risen to 70, saying two of the
contact had developed fever.The two contacts are however said to have tested negative to the disease. Briefing journalists at a joint press conference with health officials of the Lagos State government and the federal government, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, said to avert the spread of the diseases, the state government had created an alert management system to receive alerts call and rumour from communities regarding suspect/ alert Ebola cases.
He added that a website had also been created on suspected Ebola cases in the state. He explained that government embarked on contact tracing to ensure that all contacts exposed to an Ebola patient who develop fever receive care immediately and are separated from others to stop the spread of the diseases.
This, according to Idris, is the best way to stop the spread of the deadly virus. He said the contact tracing team is following 70 contacts of the EVD case linking them to clinical support when needed, adding that the two persons who had contact with the Liberian victim and who developed fever had been tested negative to Ebola virus infection.
The commissioner stressed that the state government had stepped up measures to screen incoming passengers to Nigeria to identify any travellers with symptoms through airports, seaports and border crossing.
On his part, Director of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, (NCDC) Professor Abdulsalami Nasidi, said the suspected Ebola victim’s corpse brought to Anambra would be subjected to rigorous screening to ascertain whether the corpse was truly an Ebola infected corpse.
Nasidi said in addition to that, all handlers of the corpse in Nigeria would be tracked to ascertain whether they had been infected so as not to spread the diseases in the country.
He said: “All the handlers of the corpse brought into the country from Liberia will be registered and tracked. And those who accompanied the corpse to Anambra and the mortuary handlers are under quarantine in Anambra State. Our team in Anambra State will tomorrow give us the statistics of those who came in contact with the corpse.
“If the corpse in Anambra State tested positive, we have been given two options by the World Health Organisation, WHO. We can either cremate or bury. For corpses that would be buried, they will be placed in the bag and disinfect the bag.
And the grave must be two meters deep”. On the sick contacts, 70 contacts including the sick ones have been established and they are under monitoring.
“The two people tested negative. But that does not mean that we will stop. We will continue to place them under observation until we are certified that they are free. They were part of the 70 established contacts. First, it was 59, it increased to 69 and yesterday (Thursday), we had another. And this increased the number to 70,” he added.
On the collaboration with other countries who are bringing corpse into the country, he added that the ministry of Foreign Affairs and Aviation would today issue directives on this.
He reiterated that : “There is no specific treatment for Ebola virus unlike other ailment. But there is treatment. We treat the symptoms. If we say that there is no cure, the patients will not come to the hospital.
There is no specific drug for Ebola virus. But we can use other drugs to save an infected person.”http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/ebola-dead-victims-contacts-now-70-fg-lagos/
