Ebola: Lagos Traces Persons Who Made Contact with Infected Doctor

 Confirms patient is still alive • Panic spreads as lab results for quarantined persons are delayed, NCDC keeps mute  • World Bank pledges $200m to battle epidemic in W’Africa  • BA suspends flights to Liberia, Sierra Leone

Gboyega Akinsanmi Paul Obi and James Emejo

The Lagos State Government has started compiling a comprehensive list of all persons who may have had contact with the female doctor infected with Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The doctor contracted the disease from the Liberian national, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, when she battled to save his life at the First Consultants Medical Centre, a Lagos-based hospital, before his death two weeks ago.

The state government has also affirmed that the doctor afflicted with the virus is still alive, insisting that the mode of transmission of the disease is through direct contact with broken skin, contaminated materials, secretions and the consumption of certain animals, locally termed “bush meat.”

This is just as panic over the spread of the virus has continued to grow nationwide, which was worsened by the fact that there was no official statement on the laboratory results of seven other persons who had been quarantined alongside the female doctor, after they had had contact with the Liberian who died at First Consultants.

However, THISDAY learnt that two of the nurses from First Consultants who were quarantined with the others, were already exhibiting signs of the Ebola virus, raising fears among authorities of its spread to others they may have come in contact with.

Speaking at a press briefing yesterday in Lagos, the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said the contact tracing was part of measures to contain the spread of the dreaded virus.

Idris, who addressed the conference alongside his Special Duties counterpart, Dr. Wale Ahmed, urged members of the public to be vigilant and careful in relating with people who are facing health challenges.

He explained that contact tracing “is essential and very important to stop the spread of the deadly virus. In the case of the newly infected person, we have contacted her family and have opened a comprehensive list of both primary and secondary contacts of the infected person.

“There is no panic as long as basic precautionary measures such as hand washing, adoption of appropriate waste management and enhanced personal/environmental hygiene are adhered to. This is a call for everyone to be vigilant, especially with regard to relating with people who are ill.”

The commissioner appealed to health workers to reconsider their decision to continue with the ongoing strike, saying it would be more difficult “to control the spread of the disease if indigenous health workers shy away from helping suspected and infected cases”.

He expressed appreciation for the role health workers had played in “the course of contact tracing, case management and decontamination. The challenge is a clarion call for all volunteer health workers including doctors, nurses, environmental health workers and Phlebotomists to complement our workforce.

“I appeal to striking doctors and other health workers to sheathe their swords and embrace team work. We also count on the cooperation of the good people of the state, which the federal government may need in the course of taking decisions in the overriding interest of the public”.

He said the dreaded virus could only be transmitted through direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person, adding that until an infected person “becomes seriously sick with the virus, the carrier is not infectious”.

“We need to again highlight the mode of transmission of the virus. Once a person is infected, the virus is transmissible through direct contact with broken skin, mucous membrane and secretions of an infected person or through direct contact with materials and surfaces that have been contaminated by the infected person.

“This is a call for vigilance as human-to-human transmission is only achieved by physical contact with a person who is acutely and gravely ill from the Ebola virus through body fluids such as urine, stool, saliva, breast milk and semen,” he stressed.

The commissioner added that in Africa, infection had also occurred through the handling of infected chimpanzees, monkeys, guerillas, fruit bats, antelopes and porcupines, noting that there had been no case of transmission by domestic animals such as pigs.

Idris also confirmed that the female medical doctor who attended to the index case of Ebola at First Consultants was the only confirmed case to date out of the eight primary contacts under clinical surveillance and care.

“Her being infected is largely due to the fact that she was a primary contact when the index case presented. At that point in time, the disease was not known to have been imported into the country,” Idris said.

He explained that relevant digital platforms had been set up for ease of reference, information and communication flow and that the platforms include Help line: 0800 EBOLA HELP (0800326524357); Website: www.ebolaalert.org; Facebook: fb.com/ebolaalert; and Twitter: @ebolaalert.

Panic Spreads as Lab Results are Awaited

Despite the attempt by the Lagos State Government to allay concerns, panic among Nigerians continued to spread yesterday over the spectre of the disease.

This was not helped by the fact that the authorities chose to remain mute on the laboratory results of seven other persons who had been quarantined in a ward in Lagos.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, had said on Monday that the results of two persons were being awaited, while another 70 persons were also under surveillance.
In addition, results from Anambra and Akwa Ibom States, where corpses of suspected Ebola victims had been flown to, were being awaited.

A Federal Ministry of Health official, however, told THISDAY on the condition of anonymity that the report the minister gave was still the latest and the status quo remained the same.

“We are yet to get any result on the latest development,” he said.
Another ministry source also informed THISDAY that the time span between moving the blood samples from Nigeria to the World Health Organisation (WHO) virology laboratory in Senegal might have caused the delay.

When THISDAY contacted the Project Director of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Prof. Andullraman Nasidi, the director kept mute on the status of the results.

But speaking to THISDAY, the Co-chairman of the Treatment Research Group Committee on the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), Prof. Innocent Ujah, said the committee's first meeting went smoothly.

Ujah explained that all “the terms of reference the government asked us to look at will be followed as we move along, including the implementation”.

Ujah, who also doubles as the Director General, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), however, declined to state whether the committee would visit persons who had been quarantined, but stressed that he was optimistic that the committee would accomplish most of its mandate.

However, his co-chairman in the committee, Prof. Karniyus Gamaniel, in a telephone interview with THISDAY, said the committee would not visit those under quarantine yet.

He explained that there were already positive steps as companies had already started to approach the government with remedies to tame the infectious Ebola virus.