#Ebola: Patient Dies In Port-Harcourt Bringing Number Of Deaths To Seven......

The woman patient who caught the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) from the late Dr. Ike Enemuo in Port Harcourt has died, it was announced yesterday.

She was on admission in the same hospital as the Port Harcourt doctor from whom she contracted the virus.

Minister of Health Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu said:

 “Total number of deaths from Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria is now seven (7).  One (1), the index case, occurred in a private hospital in Lagos, four (4) in the Lagos isolation ward, one (1) in the Port Harcourt isolation ward (the female patient who was on admission in the same hospital where the late Port Harcourt doctor was also admitted), while another one (1) was the doctor who was infected by the ECOWAS Commission official in Port Harcourt and who did not come under the care and management of the Incident Management Committee.”

He added that another patient was discharged following full recovery, bringing to eight the number of patients discharged so far.

The last case to be discharged, the minister said, “is the first secondary contact to be diagnosed and a spouse of a primary contact of the index case”.

She went home from the isolation ward in Lagos on Tuesday. The ninth survivor is the ECOWAS Commission official who jumped surveillance in Lagos and travelled to Port Harcourt where he infected the doctor who attended to him.

Also, confirmed cases are now 18, according to the minister’s update.

The 18th confirmed case is the sister of the late Port Harcourt doctor.

The number of cases successfully managed and discharged is now eight. The total number of EVD patients under treatment is two (2) – one in the Lagos isolation ward and another one (1) in the Port Harcourt isolation ward.

There are 40 contacts under surveillance in Lagos. Port Harcourt has 255. In Lagos, 320 contacts have been discharged after they were observed for 21 days.

 The minister also debunked rumours of EVD cases outside Lagos and Port Harcourt. These include the three (3) reported cases in the Federal Capital Territory and the one in Calabar. The minister also debunked the story that the body of the late Port Harcourt doctor was transported to Edo or Delta State, saying the body had been decontaminated and would be interred in Port Harcourt.