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NIGERIAN HEALTH OFFICIALS today confirmed five new cases of Ebola in Lagos and a second death from the virus.
The latest confirmation beings the total number of Ebola cases in Nigeria to seven.
Since the latest outbreak of the disease in March, almost 900 people have died and over 1,600 people have been infected in West Africa.
Health minister Onyebuchi Chukw said that “all the Nigerians diagnosed with EBV were primary contacts” of Patrick Sawyer, who worked for Liberia’s finance ministry and recently died from the disease.
Sawyer contracted the disease from his sister, who he cared for during her illness, before travelling to Nigeria for work. He died in quarantine on 25 July and medical staff who had contact with him have been either quarantined or placed under medical supervision.
There is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, but the latest outbreak has increased pressure to develop a treatment or a vaccination. The World Health Organisation has emphasised that homeopathy cannot cure the viral disease, which first appeared in the 1970s and has a case fatality rate of up to 90%.
Meanwhile, Spanish authorities are preparing to evacuate a Spanish missionary who has been diagnosed with the highly contagious disease.
The Spanish government said today that it will send an air force plane to Liberia to evacuate a 75-year-old Catholic priest for treatment back in Spain. However, Spain’s health ministry said earlier today that no decision had been made on where the priest would be treated.
The US recently brought two Americans who were infected with Ebola while caring for patients in Liberia back to the US for quarantined treatment under the supervision of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The organisation has stressed that bringing the two patients into the US does not pose any threat to public health in America:
- Additional reporting by the AFP
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I think this repatriation of infected persons to their own countries should be stopped, there’s simply too much danger of importing the disease along with them. They knew the risks going out there and they got infected with it – let them live or die there and stop transferring this virus internationally.
Would you wanna die in a sub standard hospital that may not even have morphine as your internal organs liquefy?
No Ryan, but then again I wouldn’t intentionally travel anywhere near an outbreak of this disease.
You don’t know they did that, this outbreak started v recently.
Go online and look at pictures of what this thing does to u, read how it kills.
Its morally reprehensible to suggest someone deserves it
Woah hold on there a second, where did I say anybody deserves it? I know exactly what ebola does and it is horrific, I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Might point is Ryan, that these people (the 2 Americans and this Spanish man) knowingly stayed in the area when the outbreak began, thus increasing their chances of contracting it which is exactly what happened.
Their care should be left to the medical teams working in the area rather than repatriating them to the US or Spain. This is not a disease to be messed with and should be contained to its original outbreak area as much as possible. There’s noble intentions bringing them back for treatment but it is also playing with fire in the event even the smallest trace of this virus gets out of the treatment centre in to the general population.
They may have been living there for some time before this latest outbreak.
You have the say that the main cause for the spread of the outbreak is the stupidity of the people who are infected with the virus.. I read one woman who knew she was dying from the virus travelled half way across Liberia to visit her husband on an oil rig infecting half the Country as she went..
Half the country must have ingested her bodily fluids or ran their hand thru her vomit then.
Or touched her?…Ebola is transmitted by touch also
We are all doomed!!!
Doomed I say !!!!!!!!
Doooomed I tells ye !!!!
For the 100th time.
YOU CAN ONLY /CONTRACT IT VIA CONTACT WITH BODILY FLUIDS OF INFECTED.
Everyone calm the hell down. People fly on the same plane as infected people and don’t get it.
Outbreak was just a movie about a more contagious strain, the real things actually v hard to catch.
Were bringing people back for treatment because the African hospitals can’t give them a comfortable death and its easier to study the thing in isolated conditions here.
Even if you wake up tomorrow and there’s 6 cases in Vincents there would still b no cause for alarm, were v well equipped to deal with it.
Calm the hell down.
@Ryan
You have 10 times the patience I have. You really keep having to repeat yourself. Still, at least the pseudo-scientific comments have decreased easily 5-fold.
Some of the readers should know that many of the posters whipping up this hysteria are conspiracy theorists who think the US govt runs concentration camps and is preparing a bogus pretext for martial law to fill them up.
Can we stick to the science, the facts and reality. Not hysteria and Hollywood,
Am I not the one always on here saying the Irish govt does not plan properly for most potential homeland security issues?
I’m the one worrying our lack of fighter cover could mean hyjacked jets can slam into nuclear plants on the UK coast and turn Dublin into a new Prypirat. So if the person always concerned about these doomsday scenarios is telling you they’re not worried about this, that they think wed cope OK with it even in the case if a mutated strain, that should tell you something.
I’m not pulling this stuff out of my ass I’m reading it from people who know better and I’m reading the plans,
Our national pandemic plans online, go read it yourself, the info about how Ebola spreads is online to. This stuffs not secret.
I’m not saying there’s nothing to worry about, but we don’t need to go closing the airports that would, ATM, be a huge overreaction.
Only time to do that is when there’s a major outbreak in the European region?..and for many reasons that’s incredibly unlikely.
@Ryan
Hey, you don’t have to convince me. I’m in the same boat as you as such, my main interest area is mutated strains of microbes and biological defence strategies and basically, if you aren’t paranoid in that field you aren’t doing it right… Regardless, I’m looking at your posts, they’re correct. I don’t really know what else you can do. All I can say is you have the microbiological seal of approval.
I thought you gave up Mary!
Hollywood has a lot to answer for.
@Brian
Hello! I think Ryan has a penchant for protocol and he’s correct in what he says so I mostly sit back and thumb him up! I will return ferociously upon seeing stupid, pseudo-scientific comments like “higher western immunity” and so forth :)
People like to be afraid my friend, it’s a thing! The media and Hollywood have done this, yes. Well that and the fact people just read The Hot Zone and reckoned they were experienced virologists. A difficult field, I’m sure you know!
Mary, this is genuine question. I’ve heard that in fact Ebola can be spread though water droplets, like flu or cold. There’s a rumour going round that animals in separate cages picked it up from each other though they had no direct physical contact. According to a BBC report. Is this true or not?
If or when it mutates and spreads like the common cold nowhere will be safe
Even in that case wed b better equipped than most countries to deal with it.
If a more contagious strain came to western Europe say all we need do is close our ports and airports and were isolated, we’ve don’t have 100s of miles of land borders like say Germany.
Its also easier to shut down intercity road and rail here.
In addition we have less population density even in our capital, Dublin spread out rather than up.
Once we declared a state of emergency, imposed a curfew and closed places of assembly wed b OK.
Its mostly cultural issues causing the spread in Africa this is what people don’t seem to get.
Its not spreading because its highly contagious its spreading cos there not listening to govy advice, not handling the dead properly…
Let’s b rational grown ups about this and not give in to hysteria
Indeed, let’s be rational grown ups. I’d be more than willing to put my money on it not mutating. You realise the time that would take and the odds of it happening?
@Mary
Hi Mary. It is fact that certain forms of Ebola like the Reston strain can be spread via aerosol between monkeys but when the virus particles were then presented with human tissue as opposed to primate they showed very low levels of pathogenicity, which is great. As of yet, Ebola can only be spread with very close body contact and in fact is not very transmissible at all. Hope that helps :)
Terrified.
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