One year after Nigeria was declared Ebola-free by the World Health Organization, ten people were quarantined after coming into contact with a person who supposedly possessed Ebola-like symptoms.
Media reports say that a man had allegedly died at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital in Nigeria due to the viral hemorrhagic fever, but the incident is unconfirmed. The man's identity is also still unknown.
The man was reported to have been rushed to the hospital vomiting, stooling and bleeding from the nose and mouth. The patient was also experiencing high fever. He died shortly after samples were taken from him for investigation.
After the death of the unnamed patient, the hospital had shut its accident and emergency ward.
"We have sent blood samples for testing and quarantined identified contacts," said Queeneth Kalu, the hospital's chief medical director. Individuals quarantined included nurses who took care of the man who was supposedly infected.
Kalu said that they have informed the Federal Ministry of Health, the National Centre for Disease Control, the Department of State Services and the Cross River State Government regarding the development of the case.
Dr. Edet Ikpi, Deputy Chairman of the hospital's Medical Advisory Committee, meanwhile explained that the hospital has taken all precautions suggested by the WHO. Ikpi stressed the fact that the recent scare was not an established case of Ebola.
In Nigeria, the first case of Ebola reported was on July 2014 when a Liberian named Patrick Sawyer flew into the country. Sawyer infected two doctors, a ward aide and a nurse. Since then, a total of 19 cases from the infection were recorded. Seven people had died during the outbreak, according to the Federal Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, the three African countries who were mainly affected by Ebola celebrated their first week of having no new Ebola cases after the outbreak in March 2014.
However, WHO still constitutes the outbreak as a "public health emergency of international concern." More than 11,000 people from all over the world had died from Ebola since the virus first appeared in 1976, a greater number than all the combined cases of death in the first occurrence.
Photo : Steven Depolo | Flickr
