survival for remaining patients of the deadly
Ebola virus disease in the country with the
donation of an experimental drug for treating
the disease.
This is even as another Nigerian nurse who
treated the late Liberian that imported the
virus into the country, Patrick Sawyer, was
confirmed dead yesterday. The deceased are
the Liberian, two nurse and another Nigerian
who worked at the ECOWAS Commission in
Lagos.
The Nigerian ECOWAS protocol official
contracted the disease from Sawyer while
helping him to the hospital after he took ill
upon arrival at the Murtala Mohammed
International Airport, Lagos. He died last
Tuesday.
At a briefing in Abuja, the Minister of Health,
Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, informed
journalists about the arrival of the drug and
confirmed that another patient had tested
positive to the disease.
He did not name the donor of the drug. At
present, the minister said the number of
persons that had tested positive to the
disease in the country was 11, including the
late Liberian.
But a statement by his Special Assistant on
Media and Communications, Dan Nwomeh, a
copy of which was made available to National
Mirror, denied the additional case.
The statement also confirmed the death of
the nurse, which was not disclosed by the
minister in his earlier briefing. Part of the
statement reads: "Nigeria has now recorded
10 confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease,
EVD. Out of these, four have died and eight
are currently under treatment. (It is
important to note that the number of
confirmed cases remains 10 as at today and
not 11 as earlier announced this morning.
We regret the error, which arose from double
counting in the process of communicating
the additional death from the operational
centre in Lagos to the Federal Ministry of
Health).
"The fourth death recorded today was a
Nigerian nurse who participated in the initial
management of the index case." The minister,
who did not give the name of the Nigerian
who procured the drug or the volume that
would be used, however, pledged that the
drug would be used according to the World
Health Organisation's, WHO, guidelines.
WHO had last Tuesday approved the use of
experimental drugs to manage the virus
which currently has no approved vaccine or
other medication for its cure, prevention or
treatment.
The drug from the scientist, Nano-Silva, the
minister said, "is something that has been
used experimentally on a lot of things. "The
only experimental drug we have now is Nano-
Silver, provided by a Nigerian scientist; details
of the drug will be disclosed later to the
media," Chukwu said.
Experimental drugs are used on animals and
other living organisms to prove their
effectiveness before getting approval from
the WHO for use on humans. He added:
"More information will come subsequently
from the technical people.
As minister, I have just told you what we've
done because the drug is going to Lagos this
morning (yesterday). Let it get there. But, I
can tell you, subsequent ones, the technical
people shall be briefing you on how they are
using it.
"Those things we've not decided because they
are going through committee. They have to
go through it, what dosage to give, in what
format, and so on and so forth." Canada had
pledged to donate close to 1,000 doses of an
experimental vaccine to help in the fight
against the virus.
The drug has also only been used on animals.
Another drug, Zmapp, had been requested by
African countries, including Nigeria, for the
treatment of the virus. However, experts
believe Zmapp, which seems to be most
prominent of all available drugs, could take
about one month to be available to meet the
present demand of the region. The number
of persons under surveillance over the virus
has reduced from 177 announced by
government on Tuesday to 169.
During yesterday's briefing, Chukwu had said
that the new victim of the disease in the
country was a doctor who refused to be kept
under surveillance. He said the total number
of confirmed cases as at the time of the
briefing was 11.
"Out of these 11, three are dead. The three
that are dead include the index case, a
Liberia-American, a Nigerian nurse who was
one of those who managed the index case,
and a Nigerian who was serving as protocol
officer with the ECOWAS Commission; and
who was detailed to go and welcome
delegates that were to go to Calabar to
attend the meeting of the ECOWAS
Commission.
"So, 11 confirmed cases out of which three
have died. Eight are still alive; more than half
of them are doing very well and are actually
showing signs of recovery."
He said 169 persons were under surveillance
in Lagos, adding that the number was going
down because all the 169 were secondary
contacts. Eight patients, the minister added,
were in isolation; and that four of them were
responding 'very well' to treatment. The
minister maintained that the 21-day
maximum incubation period to observe
primary contacts had elapsed.
"We have allowed those primary contacts
who have not shown any sign of disease to be
released. So, all the 169 contacts currently in
Lagos are all secondary contacts. "In addition,
we have six contacts in Enugu. As at
yesterday, we were following on 21 of them.
But after a very stringent and rigorous
interview, we found out that 15 did not
qualify as contacts because people who
probably stayed away from the subject
claimed they were contacts.
There is no more primary contact under
surveillance. "The primary contacts who are
sick and are being treated are eight; the
primary contact who were sick but died were
two, and, of course, the index case is late," he
said.
On the contacts in Enugu who were reported
to be 21 yesterday, Chukwu stated that one of
the primary contacts disobeyed the Incident
Management Committee's instructions and
left Lagos at the time she had no symptoms.
"The newly-married doctor, who was among
the medical officials that treated the Liberian
that imported the disease into the country,
Patrick Sawyer, went to visit her husband in
Enugu State," the minister said.
Only two of them, he said, live together; and
when she developed symptoms, she got alert
and went to a health facility from where it
was reported to the Incident Management
Committee. And since then, she has been
under treatment in Lagos. She is among the
11 that are confirmed positive.
He added: "The husband, even though he
doesn't have any symptom as at now, he is
not Ebola positive as at now, he is under
quarantine because of the intimate contact in
Lagos. She was going to Enugu; she did not
infect anybody because she was in-
symptomatic. You can only infect people
when you have symptoms. "So, the fact that
she went by public transport posed no threat
to anyone.
She had spent days before she left Enugu.
She didn't infect anybody on her way. "When
you don't have symptom, you don't infect
anybody. But on her return journey to Lagos,
both of them travelled in special ambulances.
So, they did not have opportunity to
contaminate anybody from Lagos to Enugu.
"Presently, only six persons are under
surveillance in Enugu, down from initial 21,"
Chukwu maintained
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