Hospital where Ebola virus victom dies isolated

Lagos - Lagos on Monday shut down and
quarantined a hospital where a man died of
Ebola in the first recorded case of the highly
infectious disease in Africa's most populous
country.
Patrick Sawyer, a consultant for the Liberian
finance ministry in his 40s, collapsed on
arrival at Lagos airport on July 20 and was
put in isolation at the First Consultants
Hospital in Obalende, one of the most crowded
parts of a city that is home to 21 million
people. He died on Friday.
"We have shut the hospital to enable us to
properly quarantine the environment. Some of
the hospital staff who were in close contact
with the victim have been isolated," Lagos
state health commissioner Jide Idris told
Nigerian TV.
The hospital will be shut for a week and all
staff monitored to ensure the virus has not
spread, he added.
Ebola has killed 672 people across Guinea,
Liberia and Sierra Leone since it was first
diagnosed in February.
It can kill up to 90 percent of those who catch
it, although the fatality rate of the current
outbreak is around 60 percent. Highly
contagious, especially in the late stages,
symptoms include vomiting, diarrhoea and
internal and external bleeding.
Adding to the risks, Nigerian doctors are on
strike over conditions and pay. Chairman of
the Nigerian Medical Association Tope Ojo was
quoted in local media on Saturday as saying
the strike would not be called off despite the
Ebola threat.
Nigeria's airports, seaports and land borders
have been on "red alert" since Friday.
Liberia closed most of its border crossings on
Sunday and introduced stringent health
measures.
The World Health Organization said in a
statement that Sawyer's flight stopped in Lome
in Togo on its way to Lagos.
"WHO is sending teams to both Nigeria and
Togo to do follow up work in relation to
contact tracing, in particular to contacts he
may have had on board the flight," WHO
spokesman Paul Garwood said.
The WHO said that in the past week, its
regional director for Africa, Luis Sambo, had
been on a fact finding mission to Guinea,
Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have 1,201
confirmed, suspected and probable cases
between them.
"He observed that the outbreak is beyond each
national health sector alone and urged the
governments of the affected countries to
mobilize and involve all sectors, including civil
society and communities, in the response," the
WHO statement said.
A relative surge in cases in Guinea after weeks
of low viral activity showed that "undetected
chains of transmission existed in the
community", the WHO said, calling for
containment measures and contact tracing to
be stepped up in Guinea.